3 things Biden should do for the environment before he leaves office

Over four years, President Joe Biden turned a bold climate platform into a strong climate legacy, the cornerstone of which is the Inflation Reduction Act. In just two years, the IRA has created more than 334,000 clean energy jobs, allowed more than 3.4 million American families to benefit from $8.4 billion in tax credits, and pumped more than $286 billion into 150 Republican-led districts.

But Biden’s administration is coming to a close, and Donald Trump’s second term in office is set to turn back climate progress. Trump has promised to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris climate agreement (again), to expand liquefied natural gas exports, and to pull back IRA funding.

In the remaining weeks of Biden’s term, climate experts say there are a few steps he can take to strengthen his climate wins and protect the environment against Trump’s likely action.

Finish the liquefied natural gas study

In January 2024, the Biden administration announced a temporary pause on approvals of liquefied natural gas exports. Liquefied natural gas, or LNG, is natural gas cooled to a liquid state, which can then be shipped and stored. LNG comes from fracking, which—along with the energy-intense process of chilling, shipping, and re-gassifying it—makes it an emissions-heavy process. Just one proposed LNG terminal affected by the pause would, by one estimate, produce annual emissions of more than 170 million tons of CO2—equivalent to 47 coal-fired power plants. 

The pause was meant to provide time for a study that looks at the climate, economic, and natural security implications of LNG exports. “This study is intended to take a careful look at how LNG exports affect the general public,” says Julie McNamara, deputy policy director for the Climate and Energy program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. Trump has said he wants to overturn the pause and ramp up LNG exports, but if that study is completed—and if it finds that adding LNG exports hurts the general public rather than benefits them—that could make it easier to challenge Trump’s LNG approvals in court. 

The Biden administration is reportedly racing to wrap up the study, and it’s crucial that they do, experts say. “These facts will matter,” McNamara says. “In the first Trump admin, we had repeated policies where the administration attempted to subvert science, to disallow the use of data that value the public as opposed to industry interest. There’s every reason to believe that they would try that again. However, they had a losing record in the courts.” 

Allocate more IRA funding

Much of the money that the IRA set aside for climate initiatives has been spent, and that means clean energy projects are in the works across the country. But there are still a lot of funds that haven’t yet been allocated. Around $61 billion in climate funding has been awarded for more than 6,100 projects, but there’s still about $33 billion left as of October, according to the Climate Program Portal. Even if experts think the IRA is unlikely to be completely overturned, Trump can still rescind those unspent funds through a budget reconciliation package.

New clean energy projects don’t need to be built before Trump is inaugurated in January, but experts say the Biden administration should work to commit as much money as possible, to contracts for hydrogen hubs or industrial decarbonization projects. This funding is different from the IRA tax credits for consumers; instead, it’s a government grant program, explains Dan Lashof, U.S. director of the World Resources Institute. “If those funds are not obligated through a contract that’s signed before the end of the Biden administration, the incoming administration could, through executive action, put a hold on signing new contracts,” he says. “And then Congress could essentially take that money back.” 

Similarly, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law also has some funds that haven’t yet been allocated to specific projects, and which could be rescinded—including about $1 billion available through its clean school bus program. “These laws were passed, the money is there. Making sure that that is seen through is critically important,” McNamara says of funding from both bills.

Though she still expects some states to stay committed to climate action, “there’s no changing the fact that reversal of federal funds will make that job harder, and will make it likelier that they’ll be able to achieve less on a slower timeline,” she adds. 

Publish climate targets for 2035

As part of the Paris climate agreement, participating countries are required to set “nationally determined contributions,” or NDCs. These are essentially climate action plans, with targets for emissions reductions, and details on how a country is implementing its climate efforts. 

Back in April 2021, Biden set the U.S.’ 2030 reduction targets, in which the country aimed to reach a 50 to 52% reduction from 2005 greenhouse gas levels. Countries are supposed to update their targets by February, establishing NDCs for 2035. 

Trump has vowed to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris climate agreement, just as he did in his first term. “You could ask, ‘Well, what’s the point of setting a target if you’re not going to be there to be able to put the policies in place to implement it?’” Lashof says. “The answer is, it would establish a benchmark for what the U.S. should be striving for.” That would give climate experts a benchmark, against which they can judge the climate progress (“or lack thereof,” he notes) of the Trump administration. It also gives a future administration a benchmark to come back to—and it serves as a guide for states and other local governments to focus on. 

When Trump withdrew from the Paris agreement (a move he announced in 2017, but that didn’t go into effect until 2020), 24 states and territories formed the U.S. Climate Alliance, and that effort is still going strong. Plus, many in the climate space have said that regardless of the federal moves Trump makes, climate action is still expected to happen at the local level. There are state governors still setting ambitious climate goals, and representatives who have seen their districts benefit, and likely want to continue to benefit, from climate investment.

Why Biden can’t make more sweeping, bold climate moves now

Those examples are just a few steps the Biden administration can take in the coming weeks. It can also finalize some EPA rules, as well as finalize Treasury Department guidance on some IRA tax credits. But all of these actions are limited. 

“One of the big challenges that they need to think through is new regulations they issue could be subject to being overturned through the Congressional Review Act,” Lashof says. Especially if Republicans have full control of Congress, then it could overturn any regulation—say, concerning the EPA—issued by the Executive Branch, and also make it more difficult for the EPA to publish new regulations that are similar in scope. 

The Congressional Review Act allows the incoming Congress a 60-day period to review rules that were issued at the end of the last Congress, meaning it can only be used for things finalized at the end of a president’s term. “Anything that was published between now and the end of the administration would give Congress the opportunity to use the Congressional Review Act to reject those regulations,” Lashof says. “So I think [the Biden administration] wants to be strategic about what they move forward.”