(WASHINGTON) — The House select committee investigating the Capitol attack requested on Thursday that Ivanka Trump cooperate with its investigation and asked her to testify regarding conversations with her father, former President Donald Trump, before and on Jan. 6, 2021, as they pertain to the attack and the challenging of election results.
In a new letter addressed to the former president’s daughter, Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., requested she voluntary provide an interview with the committee, citing her presence in the Oval Office.
“As January 6th approached, President Trump attempted on multiple occasions to persuade Vice President Pence to participate in his plan. One of the President’s discussions with the Vice President occurred by phone on the morning of January 6th. You were present in the Oval Office and observed at least one side of that telephone conversation,” Thompson says in the letter.
“[T]he Committee would like to discuss any other conversations you may have witnessed or participated in regarding the President’s plan to obstruct or impede the counting of electoral votes,” the letter says.
Thompson wrote that the panel’s questions to Trump’s eldest daughter, who also served as a senior adviser in the White House for four years, would be “limited to issues relating to January 6th, the activities that contributed to or influenced events on January 6th, and your role in the White House during that period.”
“The Committee is aware that certain White House staff devoted time during the violent riot to rebutting questions regarding whether the President was attempting to hold up deployment of the guard[…],” it says in the letter. “But the Committee has identified no evidence that President Trump issued any order, or took any other action, to deploy the guard that day. Nor does it appear that President Trump made any calls at all to the Department of Justice or any other law enforcement agency to request deployment of their personnel to the Capitol.”
In a press release Thursday announcing the letter, the committee said the evidence it has already obtained shows “that Ms. Trump was in direct contact with the former President at key moments on January 6th and that she may have information relevant to other matters critical to the Select Committee’s investigation.”
A spokesperson for Ivanka Trump responded to the letter in a statement but did not directly address whether she would voluntarily comply with the committee’s request.
“Ivanka Trump just learned that the January 6 Committee issued a public letter asking her to appear. As the Committee already knows, Ivanka did not speak at the January 6 rally,” the statement says. “As she publicly stated that day at 3:15pm, ‘any security breach or disrespect to our law enforcement is unacceptable. The violence must stop immediately. Please be peaceful.'”
Notably, the spokesperson omitted part of the now-deleted tweet from Jan. 6, 2021, where she referred to those breaching the Capitol as “American Patriots,” before calling for an end to the violence.
And while she did not deliver remarks at the rally that day, she was present backstage and seen in a video speaking with her father while viewing video of the crowd.
The former president has repeatedly attempted to discredit the work of the committee and has urged his allies and aides not to comply.
Earlier this week, the select committee subpoenaed former Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani, Jenna Ellis and Sidney Powell, who pushed unfounded claims of widespread 2020 election fraud. ABC News also confirmed that the committee acquired phone records from Trump’s son, Eric, and Kimberly Guilfoyle, the fiancee of Donald Trump Jr.
In the six months since it was created, the select committee has interviewed more than 350 witnesses, received more than 300 substantive tips and issued more than 50 subpoenas — for phone and email records, Trump administration documents, witness testimony and bank records, according to the committee’s public disclosures and lawsuits filed by witnesses.
The panel has also received nearly 40,000 pages of records — including text messages, emails and Trump administration documents provided by the National Archives in four separate tranches.
The request to Trump’s daughter comes on the heels of the Supreme Court on Wednesday denying the former president’s request for a stay of a lower court mandate that hundreds of pages of his presidential records from Jan. 6 be turned over to the congressional committee — a huge win for the panel, which is planning to issue an interim report on its findings over the summer.
ABC News’ John Santucci, Will Steakin and Libby Cathey contributed to this report.
Stephen Lam/ The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images
(SAN FRANCISCO) — An individual with two guns was “neutralized” near the San Francisco International Airport’s Bay Area Rapid Transit entrance, temporarily delaying BART service Thursday morning, officials said.
When officers responded to the airport’s international terminal in front of the BART station entrance, they tried to de-escalate the situation, but the suspect kept showing “threatening behavior,” airport spokesperson Doug Yakel said.
Police “engaged non-lethal measures,” but the gunman “continued to advance, at which time SFPD officers fired shots to neutralize the threat,” Yakel said.
ABC San Francisco station KGO reported that the suspect has died.
One bystander suffered minor injuries and has been treated and released, he noted.
The incident didn’t impact any airport operations, Yakel said. BART service to the airport was temporarily suspended and has since resumed.
“The entire incident happened in the terminal. It didn’t happen at BART. It was near the entrance of our station but not at our station,” a BART spokesperson said.
(WASHINGTON) — One day after President Joe Biden appeared to cast doubt on whether the midterm election results will be legitimate without the passage of a new voting rights law, his vice president and press secretary worked to dispel any mistrust in the integrity of the vote.
“Speaking of voting rights legislation, if this isn’t passed, do you still believe the upcoming election will be fairly conducted and its results will be legitimate?” a reporter asked Biden Wednesday at a lengthy press conference marking the end of his first year in office.
“Well, it all depends on whether or not we’re able to make the case to the American people that some of this is being set up to try to alter the outcome of the election,” Biden said.
“I’m not saying it’s not going to be legit, it’s the increase in the prospect of being illegitimate is in direct proportion to us not being able to get these, these reforms passed,” Biden told another reporter who followed up on his assertion that the integrity of the results “depends” on passing voting rights legislation.
Early Thursday, White House press secretary Jen Psaki tweeted, refuting the notion Biden believes there’s a possibility the election results will be questionable.
“Lets be clear: @potus was not casting doubt on the legitimacy of the 2022 election. He was making the opposite point: In 2020, a record number of voters turned out in the face of a pandemic, and election officials made sure they could vote and have those votes counted,” she said.
“He was explaining that the results would be illegitimate if states do what the former president asked them to do after the 2020 election: toss out ballots and overturn results after the fact. The Big Lie is putting our democracy at risk. We’re fighting to protect it.”
Lets be clear: @potus was not casting doubt on the legitimacy of the 2022 election. He was making the opposite point: In 2020, a record number of voters turned out in the face of a pandemic, and election officials made sure they could vote and have those votes counted.
Psaki also appeared on Fox News, saying directly that Biden “was not making a prediction” about the legitimacy of the results.
“I talked to the president a lot about this and he is not predicting that the 2022 elections would be illegitimate,” Psaki said on “America’s Newsroom.” “… The point he was making the former president asked seven or more states to overturn the outcome of the election. Now obviously if there is an effort to do that we have to fight against it. That’s what our commitment is to doing, but he was not making a prediction. He has confidence in the American people and do everything we can to protect people’s rights.”
But a major Biden ally, Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., whose support for Biden in the critical primary state of South Carolina changed the trajectory of the 2020 primary, expressed agreement on the idea that the 2022 results could be questionable in a CNN interview Thursday.
“Are you concerned that without these voting rights bills the election results won’t be legitimate?” CNN’s Kasie Hunt asked Clyburn.
“I’m absolutely concerned about that,” Clyburn said.
Vice President Kamala Harris, appearing on all three broadcast network morning shows Thursday to dispel confusion over several comments from the press conference, argued the attention should remain on protecting the right to vote, dismissing questions surrounding election integrity.
“Let’s not conflate issues. What we are looking, and the topic of so much debate last night, was that we as America cannot afford to allow this blatant erosion of our democracy, and in particular, the right of all Americans who are eligible to vote to have access to the ballot unfettered. That is the topic of the conversation. Let’s not be distracted by the political gamesmanship,” Harris said on NBC’s “Today” program.
(NEW YORK) — About 4.6 million Black people in the U.S. — roughly 1 in 10 — are immigrants, and that figure could more than double to 9.5 million by 2060, according to a study by Pew Research Center.
Pew based its calculations in the study, released Thursday, on Census data collected from from 2006 to 2019 through community surveys.
“The nation’s immigrant population has been, to some extent, largely driven by trends from Latin America and Asia,” said Mark Lopez, director of race and ethnicity research for Pew and a coauthor of the study. “But African and particularly Black immigrant trends have become a growing part of the story of the nation’s immigrant population overall.”
Lopez noted that in addition to the roughly 10% of Blacks who came from anther country, another 9% were born in the U.S. from an immigrant parent, meaning “the immigrant experience is not far from the daily life experiences of about 1 in 5 Black Americans today.”
In 2019, New York (about 900,000) and Florida (about 800,000) had the most Black immigrants, according to the study.
“Our report is part of a broader research agenda to understand the diversity of the country, including the diversity of the nation’s Black population,” Lopez added.
Abraham Paulos, deputy director of Black Alliance for Just Immigration, which is based in Brooklyn, said Black immigrants and those who’ve lived in the U.S. longer face many of the same challenges.
“I think whatever is happening in Black America is also happening to Black immigrants,” said Paulos, noting America’s historically discriminatory criminal justice system, police brutality and housing inequality. Many of those represented by BAJI also struggle to unionize and to advocate for better working conditions.
Most Black immigrants, the study showed, came from Jamaica (about 760,000) and Haiti (about 700,000) from 2009 to 2019, and many of them, Paulos noted, also faced comparatively more difficult acclimation periods, including more discrimination, than some from other nations.
In September, thousands of Haitian asylum seekers camped under a bridge in Del Rio, Texas. The Biden administration came under fire when images were released showing Customs and Border Patrol officers using horses to push back migrants crossing the Rio Grande into the U.S. And in December, a group of Haitian migrants sued the Biden administration, alleging mistreatment in that incident.
“Haiti is a great example,” Paulos said. “I think with the Haitian immigrant, I think it is probably the best analogy to sort of get a window into how Black Americans are treated by the immigration apparatus.”
(NEW YORK) — An 11-month-old girl has been shot in the face in the Bronx, prompting a search for the gunman and outcry from New York City’s new mayor.
The baby is in the hospital in critical but stable condition, the New York City Police Department said.
The shooting took place at about 6:45 p.m. Wednesday while the baby was in a parked car with her mother outside a grocery store, waiting for the father who was inside the store, police said.
A man chasing another man fired two shots, hitting the baby in the face, police said.
“An 11-month-old baby shot in the Bronx. If that’s not a wake up call, I don’t know what is,” New York City Mayor Eric Adams tweeted. “It should be unimaginable that this would happen in our city. But it did.”
“Leaders at every level have abandoned city streets. I won’t,” he said. “I refuse to surrender New York City to violence.”
Police have released surveillance video of the suspect, who they said fled the scene in a gray four-door sedan. The suspect is described as a man in a dark-colored hooded sweatshirt with a white Nike logo on the front, gray sweatpants, and black and white sneakers.
Anyone with information is asked to call the NYPD’s Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477).
NICOLAS MAETERLINCK/BELGA MAG/AFP via Getty Images
(LONDON) — From flying over an active volcano to surviving in minus 31 degrees Fahrenheit, British-Belgium teen Zara Rutherford has experienced a lot in her five-month journey flying over 40 countries and five continents.
When the 19-year-old landed in Belgium on Thursday, she made history by breaking the record of the youngest woman to ever fly solo around the world. The pilot who previously held the record, Shaesta Waiz, was 30 years old when she completed the journey.
“It’s been … challenging, but so amazing at the same time,” Rutherford told ABC News. “I think there’re some experiences that I’ll just never forget and others that I would wish to forget.”
Rutherford embarked on her epic journey with her Shark Aero, a high-performance, two-seat ultralight aircraft manufactured in Europe. The small plane is especially made to withstand long journeys at the cruising speed of 186.4 mph.
Since both of her parents are certified pilots, Rutherford learned her way behind the airplane controls when she was very young.
“Zara’s first flight in a very small airplane, was when she was three or four months old. … And frequently, she’d be given the opportunity to sit in the front, to start with, of course, on about six cushions to be able to manipulate the controls and move the aircraft around,” Sam Rutherford, Zara’s father and a former army helicopter pilot, told ABC News.
But it was not until about five years ago that Rutherford truly realized her passion for flying.
“It only really crystallized into something she actually wanted to do more formally when she was 14, and at 14, she started actually taking flying lessons,” Rutherford’s father said.
Then teen ran into maintenance problems, COVID-19 complications and visa issues along her journey. She said once she reached Russia, she fully realized the risks of her mission.
“There was no humans. It’s too cold. It’s like nothing. There’s no roads, there’s no power like electricity cables. There’s nothing, there’s no animals, there’s no trees. I didn’t see a tree for over a month,” Rutherford said.
“When you’re flying alone and suddenly this challenge comes up, I can’t say, ‘I’m done. I’m out. I give up.’ You have to still land the plane. You have to make sure that you get down on the ground safely,” she said.
Still, she was often amazed by the things she saw along the way.
“That is still like the hands down the most amazing thing flying straight over Central Park … because of air space [regulations] you have to fly quite low. And it’s quite strange when… some of the buildings still are higher than you like. Wow, this is incredible,” the young solo pilot said.
Someone to look up to
Before starting her journey, Rutherford messaged Waiz — the American-Afghan pilot who previously held the flying record — on LinkedIn and asked if she would mind if she attempted to break her record.
“‘Of course, that’s OK. Records are meant to be broken,’ I told her,” Waiz, who finished her journey in 2017, told ABC News.
“‘Not only are you going to fly around the world, but I’m going to do everything I can to help you, because it is an incredible experience and I want [you] to have that,'” she said to Rutherford.
Waiz got on her first plane as an infant, when her family left Afghanistan as refugees during the Soviet–Afghan War and settled in California. She didn’t fly again until she was 17.
“I was terrified. But as soon as that plane lifted off, something ignited in me and I just thought to myself, ‘This is what I want to do for the rest of my life,'” she recalled.
Changing perspectives
Flying solo around the world, for Rutherford and Waiz, was not just about crossing geographical borders and breaking records, but also about getting to see life from a different perspective.
To Waiz, the unique thing about aviation is the way it takes away all discriminations and differences among people.
“When you’re in the airplane and you’re flying, it’s such an unbiased environment that that aircraft doesn’t care where you come from or what you look like,” she said.
Rutherford said flying has taught her that life is “fragile,” and there is “so much more to life than just getting a good career and making and having a good salary.”
She hopes her history-making journey inspires other girls and women to chase their dreams.
“Her aim is actually not to fly around the world. Her aim is to encourage young women and girls to consider and hopefully take up careers in aviation, science, technology, engineering and mathematics,” Rutherford’s father said. “There’s very little point to her flying around the world if nobody gets to hear about it. We all have our own worlds to fly around.”
(LONDON) — Two men were arrested in England on Thursday morning as part of an ongoing investigation into a hostage-taking incident at a synagogue in the United States, British authorities said.
Counterterrorism officers detained one of the men in Birmingham and the other in Manchester, about 85 miles north of Birmingham. The pair “remain in custody for questioning,” according to a statement from the Greater Manchester Police.
Assistant Chief Constable Dominic Scally of the Greater Manchester Police has said that counterterrorism officers are assisting their U.S. counterparts in the probe of Saturday’s hourslong standoff between American authorities and a hostage-taker at the Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas, about 27 miles northwest of Dallas.
An armed man claiming to have planted bombs in the synagogue interrupted Shabbat services on Saturday just before 11 a.m. local time, taking a rabbi and three other people hostage, according to Colleyville Police Chief Michael Miller.
One hostage was released uninjured at around 5 p.m. CT on Saturday, Miller told a press conference later that night. An elite hostage rescue team from the Federal Bureau of Investigation then breached the synagogue at about 9 p.m. CT, after hearing the hostage-taker say he had guns and bombs and was “not afraid to pull the strings,” according to a joint intelligence bulletin issued Wednesday and obtained by ABC News.
“As a tactical team approached to make entry to the synagogue, the hostages escaped and were secured by tactical elements,” the bulletin said. “The assault team quickly breached the facility at a separate point of entry, and the subject was killed.”
No hostages were injured during the incident, according to Miller.
The slain suspect, identified by the FBI as 44-year-old British citizen Malik Faisal Akram, was from the Blackburn area of England’s Lancashire county, about 20 miles northwest of Manchester, according to Scally.
A motive for the siege is under investigation. The FBI said in a statement Sunday that the incident “is a terrorism-related matter, in which the Jewish community was targeted, and is being investigated by the Joint Terrorism Task Force.”
During the negotiations with authorities, Akram “spoke repeatedly about a convicted terrorist who is serving an 86-year prison sentence in the United States on terrorisms charges,” according to the FBI.
Multiple law enforcement sources told ABC News that the hostage-taker was demanding the release of Aafia Siddiqui, who is incarcerated at Carswell Air Force Base near Fort Worth, about 16 miles southwest of Colleyville. Siddiqui, who has alleged ties to al-Qaida, was sentenced to 86 years in prison after being convicted of assault as well as attempted murder of an American soldier in 2010.
Two teenagers were arrested in southern Manchester on Sunday evening in connection with the synagogue attack. They were questioned and later released without being charged, Greater Manchester Police said in a statement Tuesday. Multiple law enforcement sources told ABC News that the teens are Akram’s children.
Akram has ancestral ties to Jandeela, a village in Pakistan’s Punjab province, the local police chief told ABC News. He visited Pakistan in 2020 and stayed for five months, the police chief said, a duration that may have been necessitated by COVID-19 restrictions.
Akram has been separated from his wife for two years and has five children, according to the police chief.
After arriving in the U.S. last month via a flight from London to New York City, Akram stayed at homeless shelters at various points and may have portrayed himself as experiencing homelessness in order to gain access to the Texas synagogue during Shabbat services, multiple law enforcement sources told ABC News.
U.S. President Joe Biden, who called the hostage-taking incident “an act of terror,” told reporters Sunday that investigators suspect Akram purchased a gun on the street. While Akram is alleged to have claimed he had bombs, investigators have found no evidence that he was in possession of explosives, according to Biden.
ABC News’ Luke Barr, Aaron Katersky, Habibullah Khan, Josh Margolin and Joseph Simonetti contributed to this report.
NICOLAS MAETERLINCK/BELGA MAG/AFP via Getty Images
(LONDON) — From flying over an active volcano to surviving in minus 31 degrees Fahrenheit, British-Belgium teen Zara Rutherford has experienced a lot in her five-month journey flying over 40 countries and five continents.
When the 19-year-old lands in Belgium Thursday, she will have made history by breaking the record of the youngest woman to ever fly solo around the world. The pilot who currently holds the record, Shaesta Waiz, was 30 years old when she completed the journey.
“It’s been … challenging, but so amazing at the same time,” Rutherford told ABC News. “I think there’re some experiences that I’ll just never forget and others that I would wish to forget.”
Rutherford embarked on her epic journey with her Shark Aero, a high-performance, two-seat ultralight aircraft manufactured in Europe. The small plane is especially made to withstand long journeys at the cruising speed of 186.4 mph.
Since both of her parents are certified pilots, Rutherford learned her way behind the airplane controls when she was very young.
“Zara’s first flight in a very small airplane, was when she was three or four months old. … And frequently, she’d be given the opportunity to sit in the front, to start with, of course, on about six cushions to be able to manipulate the controls and move the aircraft around,” Sam Rutherford, Zara’s father and a former army helicopter pilot, told ABC News.
But it was not until about five years ago that Rutherford truly realized her passion for flying.
“It only really crystallized into something she actually wanted to do more formally when she was 14, and at 14, she started actually taking flying lessons,” Rutherford’s father said.
Then teen ran into maintenance problems, COVID-19 complications and visa issues along her journey. She said once she reached Russia, she fully realized the risks of her mission.
“There was no humans. It’s too cold. It’s like nothing. There’s no roads, there’s no power like electricity cables. There’s nothing, there’s no animals, there’s no trees. I didn’t see a tree for over a month,” Rutherford said.
“When you’re flying alone and suddenly this challenge comes up, I can’t say, ‘I’m done. I’m out. I give up.’ You have to still land the plane. You have to make sure that you get down on the ground safely,” she said.
Still, she was often amazed by the things she saw along the way.
“That is still like the hands down the most amazing thing flying straight over Central Park … because of air space [regulations] you have to fly quite low. And it’s quite strange when… some of the buildings still are higher than you like. Wow, this is incredible,” the young solo pilot said.
Someone to look up to
Before starting her journey, Rutherford messaged Waiz — the woman who previously held the record flying record — on LinkedIn, and asked if she would mind if she attempted to break her record.
“‘Of course, that’s OK. Records are meant to be broken,’ I told her,” The American-Afghan pilot, who finished her journey in 2017, told ABC News.
“‘Not only are you going to fly around the world, but I’m going to do everything I can to help you, because it is an incredible experience and I want [you] to have that,'” Waiz said to Rutherford.
Waiz got on her first plane as an infant, when her family left Afghanistan as refugees during the Soviet–Afghan War and settled in California. She didn’t fly again until she was 17. “I was terrified. But as soon as that plane lifted off, something ignited in me and I just thought to myself, ‘This is what I want to do for the rest of my life,'” she recalled.
Changing perspectives
Flying solo around the world, for Rutherford and Waiz, was not just about crossing geographical borders and breaking records, but also about getting to see life from a different perspective.
To Waiz, the unique thing about aviation is the way it takes away all discriminations and differences among people.
“When you’re in the airplane and you’re flying, it’s such an unbiased environment that that aircraft doesn’t care where you come from or what you look like,” she said.
Rutherford said flying has taught her that life is “fragile,” and there is “so much more to life than just getting a good career and making and having a good salary.”
She hopes her history-making journey inspires other girls and women to chase their dreams.
“Her aim is actually not to fly around the world. Her aim is to encourage young women and girls to consider and hopefully take up careers in aviation, science, technology, engineering and mathematics,” Rutherford’s father said. “There’s very little point to her flying around the world if nobody gets to hear about it. We all have our own worlds to fly around.”
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden arrived in office with lofty expectations from environmentalists who hoped that his ambitious campaign rhetoric would translate into an aggressive climate platform to match.
One year into his tenure, advocates credit Biden for setting an historically bold agenda, taking important steps to undo Trump-era rollbacks, and enacting a whole-of-government approach to combat climate change.
“President Biden is delivering,” said Margo Oge, the former director of the EPA’s Office of Transportation and Air Quality, and current chair of the International Council on Clean Transportation.
But for others, the honeymoon has ended. Inconsistencies and broken pledges have frustrated some, and the fate of Biden’s ambitious Build Back Better proposal — which would commit $550 billion toward addressing climate change — remains in congressional purgatory.
His most fervent critics say he is failing.
“While Biden started off the year strong by undoing most of Trump’s anti-climate executive orders, Biden has stopped leading and is instead feeding us empty promises without delivering on a bold climate agenda,” said Varshini Prakash, executive director of Sunrise Movement, an advocacy group that supports political action on climate change.
The mixed reviews reflect a larger dispute within the environmental community as to what constitutes success. Pragmatists see Biden’s climate change efforts as crucial momentum in what Sierra Club legislative director Melinda Pierce calls the “incredibly plodding, deliberative pace of administrative rulemaking.” But more progressive groups like the Sunrise Movement see it differently. Biden, says Prakash, is “refusing to meet the moment we’re in right now.”
Indeed, as the Biden administration embarks on its second year in power, important climate change metrics continue their dire trend. European scientists recently concluded that the past seven years have been the hottest on record “by a clear margin.” And in 2021, America’s greenhouse gas emissions rose by more than 6%, according to the Rhodium Group global research institute.
Experts warn that the political outlook for the coming year may shrink Biden’s window for a legislative victory. Congressional gridlock shows no sign of letting up, looming midterm elections may soon complicate efforts to take bold action, and Biden’s approval rating remains on a downward trend, according to a recent Quinnipiac poll.
And if Democrats lose control of Congress in November’s midterms, or the White House in 2024, advocates fear the next few months may end up being the last chance for environmentalists to see major legislative action for a decade.
On Wednesday, Biden said he remains “confident [the administration] can get pieces — big chunks — of the Build Back Better law signed into law” before the midterm elections.
“Now is the time for the Biden administration to build on and accelerate the progress made in their first year,” said Abigail Dillen, president of Earthjustice, a nonprofit environmental group.
‘Come out swinging’
For environmentalists, Biden’s very presence in the White House marked an important turning point in the climate fight. His predecessor, former President Donald Trump, sought to dismantle the federal government’s ability to address climate change and took a series of executive actions in line with that philosophy, including removing the U.S. from Paris Climate Accord — a move that Biden reversed on his first day in office.
Under Trump, the Environmental Protection Agency also took steps to loosen emissions standards put in place during the Obama administration — another measure that Biden has since reversed.
“We were super excited for President Biden — who ran on what was the most aggressive and ambitious climate agenda ever — to come out swinging,” said Pierce. “The level of ambition, scope, and breadth of what he was tackling was extraordinary.”
Before even setting foot in the Oval Office, Biden signaled his intent to prioritize climate issues. He committed to making the U.S. government carbon neutral by 2050, and placed fighting climate change in his pantheon of top priorities alongside strengthening the economy, ending the coronavirus pandemic, and battling racism.
The emphasis on climate reached the far corners of Biden’s transition process. A former member of Biden’s intelligence transition team told ABC News that their mandate was to focus resources toward combatting “the three C’s” — COVID-19, China, and climate change.
“Climate science demands this ‘whole of government’ approach that pursues every opportunity,” said Chase Huntley, the vice president of strategy at the nonprofit Wilderness Society.
Once in office, Biden took several organizational and bureaucratic steps to pivot away from Trump’s policies. He launched a White House Climate Policy Office to coordinate an administration-wide response to climate change, and established the White House’s first Environmental Justice Advisory Council to ensure that at least 40% of the benefits of climate investments go to communities that are disproportionately impacted by pollution.
Then came the executive actions, which environmentalists lauded for their sweeping reversal of Trump’s rollbacks. A Washington Post analysis found that Biden targeted half of the Trump era’s energy and environmental executive actions. A White House spokesperson highlighted Biden’s efforts to restore U.S. climate leadership abroad, jump-start electric vehicle development, and accelerate clean energy initiatives.
But since those early days of the Biden administration, his climate victories have been blunted by setbacks.
Two steps forward, one step back
While experts say the Biden administration has made meaningful progress on climate issues ranging from emissions standards to fossil fuel extraction, environmentalists also see inconsistencies — actions from the administration that seem to undermine the president’s own pledges and rhetoric.
On the use of federal lands and waters, for example, the administration garnered praise from environmentalists when the Department of Interior suspended its controversial oil and gas leasing program in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in the summer of 2021. And just last week, the White House announced plans to open up large swaths of New York and New Jersey coastal waters for renewable wind infrastructure, which experts say will eventually produce enough energy to power two million homes.
But those developments have been overshadowed by the Biden administration’s auctioning off of large swaths of federal waters in the Gulf of Mexico for oil drilling, a decision that will serve to “perpetuate climate pollution from public lands instead of reduce it,” according to Huntley.
Biden pledged to end new drilling on federal lands during his presidential campaign, and just days before the lease sale in November, he encouraged every nation at the Glasgow COP26 Climate Conference to “do its part” to solve the climate crisis.
“It’s hard to imagine a more dangerous, hypocritical action in the aftermath of the climate summit,” said Kristen Monsell, a lawyer for the nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity.
Administration officials justified the decision to move forward with the lease sale by citing a court order to do so, despite claims from environmentalists that they were under no such obligation. On Wednesday, environmental groups sent a legal petition calling on the administration to cease oil and gas production on public lands by 2035. The Department of Interior did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Vehicle emissions have also emerged as a source of contention. The EPA under Biden recently proposed the most aggressive limits on pollution from cars and light trucks in history, mandating higher fuel efficiency standards for vehicles starting in 2023. Experts welcomed the measure and took stock of its significance.
“Given that transportation is the number-one greenhouse gas contributor in the U.S., that was a pretty big deal,” said Oge.
But Biden refused to sign on to a multi-country commitment to take similar steps for buses and large trucks — some of the highest-polluting vehicles on the road. After the COP26 summit in Glasgow, 15 countries signed a pledge to make all new commercial trucks electric by 2040. The U.S. was not one of them.
“I was disappointed,” Oge said. “But it does not mean the administration can’t still take steps to reduce those emissions.”
The administration also scored points with activists when it stepped in to halt the controversial Keystone XL pipeline. But Abigail Dillen of Earthjustice points out that it failed to take action against the Line 3 pipeline, which, “from a climate standpoint, [is] equally harmful,” Dillen said.
“The Biden administration has clear authority to take back the Line 3 permit,” said Dillen. “The real difference between these two pipelines appears to be a political calculus. The Biden administration encountered unsurprising blowback in some quarters for its Keystone decision.”
Several environmentalists speculate that the Biden administration has sought to use its executive authority sparingly — doing enough to strengthen major climate priorities, but not so much as to put off moderate legislators whose votes will be needed to pass Build Back Better.
Despite those apparent contradictions, Biden’s political allies remain in his corner — particularly when his environmental record is held up against Trump’s — but they say they’re looking forward to additional progress in the coming year.
“Compared to Trump, the Biden administration has done a good job,” said Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee. “But we must hold our government to a higher standard than President Trump and his cronies if we are going to be serious about taking on climate change.”
Hope and headwinds
Environmentalists and industry leaders view the next few months as crucial to Biden’s climate legacy, even as he faces political headwinds. Many seem inclined to be patient with Biden and his team, in light of their progress and pledges to date, and point to several areas where Biden can put points on the board.
Advocates say the administration can take additional executive actions, such as encouraging federal agencies, including the Pentagon, to turn toward electric vehicles for its fleets. The EPA has also signaled that it may propose tighter greenhouse gas emissions for heavy-duty vehicles starting in 2027 — which Oge said she hopes will include “strong and ambitious requirements for buses and delivery vans to be electric.”
“Looking ahead, this administration needs to be turning all the knobs under their control as far as they can go, for the sake of climate,” Huntley said.
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court is expected to hear arguments in February in a case brought by Republican-led states that could curb the EPA’s authority to regulate carbon emissions standards.
The most pressing issue, however, remains Biden’s signature Build Back Better plan — an enormous package that experts believe will make or break Biden’s environmental ambitions. The plan is universally opposed by congressional Republicans.
The plan is universally opposed by congressional Republicans, who have expressed concern over what its $1.7 trillion price tag would do to the national debt, and a pair of moderate Democrats, Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, who are advocating for a pared-down version of the bill.
But the White House indicated this week that it will press forward, even as other legislative priorities take center stage.
“Yes, there is a lot one can do under executive order — but a really large portion driving the kind of investments to tackle climate change has to come from Congress,” said the Sierra Club’s Melinda Pierce. “When you look to measure what was done in Year One, clearly the piece that has to be achieved legislatively is incomplete.”
(WASHINGTON) — The Senate on Wednesday night failed to change the filibuster rule to allow voting rights legislation to pass with a simple majority.
The rule change would have required 51 votes to pass but did not have the support of all Democrats, whose leader had pushed for it. Sens. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., joined all Republicans in opposing the change.
Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said prior to the vote that the Senate would be “saved” by the opposition.
“Tonight, for the first time in history almost an entire political party will write in permanent ink that they would shatter the soul of the Senate for short-term power,” McConnell said. “But the brave bipartisan majority of this body is about to stop them.”
President Joe Biden said in a statement following the defeat: “I am profoundly disappointed that the Senate has failed to stand up for our democracy. I am disappointed — but I am not deterred. We will continue to advance necessary legislation and push for Senate procedural changes that will protect the fundamental right to vote.”
Earlier in the evening, the Senate was unable to end debate on voting rights legislation — something that would have required 60 votes to move toward final passage.
That vote was 49-51.
“This is about the fundamental freedom to vote and what should be an unfettered access to the ballot. I am here to make a very strong statement that this is: Whatever happens tonight in terms of the outcome of this vote the president and I are not going to give up on this issue this is fundamental to our democracy and it is non-negotiable,” Vice President Kamala Harris said after the first vote.
In a rare event, the Senate convened on Wednesday morning with all Democrats instructed to be in their seats inside the chamber as they tried to move forward on voting rights legislation and on a challenge to a longstanding Senate rule.
Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., was one of the last to speak before the voting began.
“Jan. 6 happened, but here’s the thing, Jan. 5 also happened. Georgia, a state in the old confederacy, sent a Black man and a Jewish man to the Senate in one fell swoop,” he said. “Our nation has always had a complicated history, and I submit to you that here’s where we are — we’re swinging from a moral dilemma. We are caught somewhere between Jan. 5 and Jan. 6. Between our hopes and our fears. Between bigotry and beloved community. And in each moment we the people have to decide which way are we going to go, and what are we willing to sacrifice in order to get there. The question today is are we going to give in to a violent attack, whose aim is now being pursued through partisan voter suppression laws in state legislatures?”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said Tuesday that Democrats would seek a carveout to the filibuster rule to pass voting rights legislation by replacing the current 60-vote threshold needed to break a filibuster with an old-fashioned “talking filibuster.”
“We feel very simply: On something as important as voting rights, if Senate Republicans are going to oppose it, they should not be allowed to sit in their office,” Schumer said Tuesday following an evening caucus meeting. “They’ve got to come down on the floor and defend their opposition to voting rights, the wellspring of our democracy. There’s broad, strong feeling in our caucus about that.”
“The eyes of history are upon us,” he said to open debate Wednesday, preemptively defending the effort as a moral win, if not a legislative one. “Win, lose or draw, we are going to vote, especially when the issue relates to the beating heart of democracy.”
Schumer called out McConnell directly in his speech, who has led his party to block Democrats’ election reform efforts five times in the last year, blasting him for falsely claiming that red states haven’t changed laws restricting voter access.
“Just as Donald Trump has his “big lie,” Mitch McConnell now has his: States are not engaging in trying to suppress voters whatsoever,” Schumer said.
He also addressed two Democratic senators who hold what Schumer thinks is a false view that the chamber’s filibuster brings greater bipartisanship — and he countered in his remarks: “Isn’t the protection of voting rights — the most fundamental wellspring of this democracy — more important?”
McConnell, in another blistering speech, said a rule change would “destroy the Senate” and warned of a “nuclear winter” if Democrats get their way and “blow up” the chamber’s rule to pass voting rights legislation, which he called a “partisan Frankenstein bill.”
“This is exactly the kind of toxic world view that this president pledged to disavow, but it is exactly what has consumed his party on his watch,” McConnell said, building on days of swipes at President Joe Biden.
McConnell accused Democrats of trying to “smash and grab as much short-term power as they can carry,” and said, “For both groups of senators, this vote will echo for generations.”
When Majority Whip Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., tried to ask McConnell a question after his speech and get him to engage in debate on the issue, the Republican leader walked away.
“I’m sorry he did not stay for the question,” Durbin said to the chamber. “Does he really believe that there is no evidence of voter suppression in the actions of 19 states?”
Democrats’ election reform bill comes at a time when 19 states have restricted access to voting fueled by false claims in the wake of the 2020 election, according to the the nonpartisan Brennan Center for Justice. The bill at hand would make Election Day a federal holiday, expand early voting and mail-in-voting, and give the federal government greater oversight over state elections.
Schumer has proposal to reverting to a talking filibuster on the issue would allow Democrats to subvert GOP obstruction to make way for the bill’s final passage.
Under a talking filibuster, senators are required to “hold the floor” during debate, testing their stamina as they stand and speak to block bills. Once a party runs out of steam, the chamber would then pass the bill that was filibustered by a simple majority. So, in theory, Harris, as president of the Senate, would serve as a tie-breaking vote for Democrats to pass the once-filibustered bill.
But both Manchin and Sinema have repeatedly made clear their opposition to changing the filibuster rule even in order to pass voting rights, although they say they support the underlying legislation.
“I don’t know how you break a rule to make a rule,” Manchin told reporters Tuesday, shooting down the proposed talking filibuster.
Manchin defended his decision to vote against changing Senate rules in a floor speech Wednesday evening that he said aimed to “rebut what I believe is a great misleading of the American people” by Senate Democrats.
“Eliminating the filibuster would be the easy way out. It was not meant to be easy,” Manchin said. “I cannot support such a perilous course for this nation when elected leaders are sent to Washington to unite our country not to divide our country. We are called the United States, not the divided states, and putting politics and party aside is what we are supposed to do.”
Manchin made another plea for bipartisan cooperation and said he believes election reform could be achieved in a bipartisan fashion if members worked at it.
“I don’t know what happened to the good old days but I can tell you they’re not here now,” Manchin said.
The West Virginia lawmaker said he respects that many Democrats have migrated in their stance on the filibuster and asked for respect in his steadfast opposition.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., however, laid into Manchin and Sinema Wednesday evening.
“I do not understand why two Democrats who presumably understand the importance of the Freedom to Vote Act, and as I understand it, will vote for the Freedom to Vote Act, are not prepared to change the rules so that that bill could actually become law. That I do not understand,” he said. “If you think this bill makes sense and if you’re worried about the future of American democracy and if you are prepared to vote for the bill, then why are you wasting everybody’s time and not voting for the rule change that allows us to pass the bill? You know, it’s like inviting somebody to lunch and putting out a great spread and saying you can’t eat.”
Generally, senators rarely occupy the chamber while debate is open and only those wishing to speak deliver remarks to a largely empty room — but that was not the case for the high-stakes showdown Wednesday.
Among those who spoke was Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, who warned Democrats that they’re embarking on a “slippery slope” in attempting to carve out an exception to the filibuster to pass a piece of legislation.
“They’ll soon find themselves rueing the day their party broke the Senate,” he said. “The next Republican-controlled Senate can make the 2017 tax cuts permanent, ensure that blue state millionaires are required to pay their fair share of federal taxes,” he went on, listing GOP platforms including implementing a 20-week ban on abortion and establishing concealed carry of firearms nationwide.
Both parties have supported filibuster carveouts in the past decade for judicial nominees — first under then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who lowered the threshold for judicial nominees to 51 votes to make way for then-President Barack Obama’s nominees in 2013. McConnell, as Senate majority leader in 2017, also used the so-called “nuclear option” to confirm then-President Donald Trump’s first Supreme Court nominee, Neil Gorsuch.
