Biden announces hundreds of millions in funding towards fighting climate change

While delivering remarks in Palo Alto, California, Biden said that he is dedicating almost $600 million towards launching the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s first “Climate Resilience Regional Challenge.”

“Starting tomorrow the Department of Commerce will launch the first, largest competitive climate resilience … challenge to provide $600 million to coastal and Great Lake communities that are building projects to protect against the impacts of climate change from sea level rise, flooding and storm surge, we’re investing in the people in places that haven’t been hit the hardest, but who are also on the frontlines,” Biden said.

According to the website of the Office for Coastal Management, “around $575 million will be dedicated toward project that build the resilience of coastal communities to extreme weather and other impacts of climate change, including sea level rise and drought.”

“Just last week across the East Coast and Midwest, we saw what you’ve already seen here in California,” Biden said. “Millions of Americans, sheltering indoors. The air not safe to breathe. Orange haze covering the sky, it’s incredible.”

“We’re investing in the people and places that have been hit the hardest but who are also on the front lines of leading us forward,” he added.

The President was also joined by Governor Gavin Newsom (D-Calif.) to announce the new funding, they also announced that the Department of Energy will be investing more than $2 billion to modernize the electric grid. The investment by the Department of Energy will begin in California with around $67 million to help improve the grid in the state.

According to the President, the funds will come from the Inflation Reduction Act which was passed in August 2022, and will be used to help improve coastal communities in case of severe weather and a “changing climate.”

The President highlighted his efforts to combat climate change saying that his administration is “taking the most aggressive climate action ever” and took the opportunity to once again attack Republicans, saying that they are “continuing to try to undo all the progress we’ve already made in the first two and a half years.

“They were holding the country hostage over the debt limit unless I would gut the climate provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act,” Biden said.

The press conference took place at Lucy Evan Baylands Nature Interpretive Center and Preserve, which the White House touted as a “leading example of the type of community-driven climate solutions that the federal government is investing in to harness nature to fight the climate crisis.”

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