WASHINGTON:
Democrat Joe Biden captured the U.S. presidency on Saturday, several major television networks said, as voters narrowly rebuffed Republican incumbent Donald Trump’s tumultuous leadership and embraced Biden’s promise to fight the coronavirus pandemic and fix the economy in a divided nation
Biden’s projected victory came after four days of nail-biting suspense over the outcome of Tuesday’s election, with the counting of votes in a handful of battleground states still going on thanks to a flood of mail-in ballots.
Biden had a 273 to 214 lead in the state-by-state Electoral College vote that determines the winner, having won Pennsylvania’s 20 electoral votes to put him over the 270 he needed to secure the presidency, according to Edison Research.
Both sides characterized the 2020 election as one of the most crucial in U.S. history, as important as votes during the 1860s Civil War and the 1930s Great Depression.
Biden’s victory was driven by strong support from groups including women, African Americans, white voters with college degrees and city-dwellers. He was more than four million votes ahead of Trump in the nationwide popular vote count.
Biden, who has spent half a century in public life as a U.S. senator and then vice president under Trump’s predecessor Barack Obama, will inherit a nation in turmoil over the coronavirus pandemic and the related economic slowdown as well as disruptive protests against racism and police brutality.
Biden has said his first priority will be developing a plan to contain and recover from the pandemic, promising to improve access to testing and, unlike Trump, to heed the advice of leading public health officials and scientists.
Biden also has pledged to restore a sense of normalcy to the White House after a presidency in which Trump praised authoritarian foreign leaders, disdained longstanding global alliances, refused to disavow white supremacists and cast doubt on the legitimacy of the U.S. election system.
Despite his victory, Biden will have failed to deliver the sweeping repudiation to Trump that Democrats had hoped for, reflecting the deep support the president enjoys despite his tumultuous four years in office.
This could complicate Biden’s campaign promises to reverse key parts of Trump’s legacy. These include deep Trump tax cuts that especially benefited corporations and the wealthy, hardline immigration policies, efforts to dismantle the 2010 Obamacare healthcare law and Trump’s abandonment of such international agreements as the Paris climate accord and Iran nuclear deal.
Should Republicans keep control of the U.S. Senate, they would likely block large parts of his legislative agenda, including expanding healthcare and fighting climate change. That prospect could depend on the outcome of four undecided Senate races, including two in Georgia.Biden, set to become the 46th U.S. president, mounted unsuccessful bids for the presidency in 1988 and 2008.
His running mate, U.S. Senator Kamala Harris, will become the first woman, the first Black American and the first American of Asian descent to serve as vice president, the country’s No. 2 office.
Biden has promised sweeping measures to make the U.S. economy carbon neutral by 2050
Biden has promised sweeping measures to make the U.S. economy carbon neutral by 2050 to put the United States on a path to cut emissions as deeply as scientists say is necessary to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.The agenda to reverse President Donald Trump’s legacy of climate deregulation would likely start with some easy wins, such as rejoining the Paris Agreement, but would become more complex as his administration ventures further into regulating greenhouse gas emissions down toward net-zero.
Here are some of the actions Biden could take:
REJOIN PARIS AGREEMENT
Soon after the Jan. 20 inauguration, Biden will likely rejoin the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change, which Donald Trump left, saying it was too expensive. While Biden promised in the campaign to commit the United States to net zero emissions by 2050, rejoining the Paris pact will put him under pressure to set a nearer-term goal of cutting emissions by 2030.
Biden has said he wants to make a diplomatic push to persuade China, the world’s top greenhouse gas emitter, to stop financing coal plants through its Belt and Road initiative. Persuading other countries to cut emissions and to preserve their carbon storing forests will test the Biden administration.
Biden will likely use executive orders to reverse Trump’s rollbacks of regulations. Potential targets include placing methane standards on oil and gas operations and the prevention of drilling in the Arctic.
Trump rolled back about 80 rules on the environment, dozens of which are related to standards on emissions or drilling and mining, according to a Harvard University Environmental & Energy Law Program tracker here.
How quickly Biden will issue executive orders and act on them may depend on how much drillers, still smarting from anemic fuel demand from the coronavirus pandemic, pressure his administration. Much of what Biden does by executive order could be reversed by a future Republican administration.
GREEN JOBS
Biden proposed $2 trillion in spending over his first four-year term and achieving 100% clean electricity by 2035.
The extent to which he will achieve that plan to provide green jobs in infrastructure, such as building charging stations for electric vehicles and energy efficient housing, will largely depend on Congress. With it looking likely that Republicans will keep control of the Senate it would be unlikely Congress would pass a big climate bill anytime soon.
Still, some funds to build the green economy could be included in wider legislation such as an overdue package on coronavirus relief or an infrastructure bill, which House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, says is one of her two big priorities and has long been a goal for Republicans.
And Biden could lean on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, a little-known independent panel of the Energy Department, to push through policy including decarbonizing the power grid by 2035.
OIL AND GAS
Trump tried to convince voters falsely that Biden would wipe out the oil and gas industry. Biden told reporters on Oct. 22 that fossil fuels would be around for a long time, but his plan to kill subsidies for the fuels would help reduce U.S. dependence on them.
Biden does not support a wide ban on fracking, a drilling technique that reaches big energy deposits, but wants to stop new oil and gas permitting on federal lands. Such a ban could be limited as fracking occurs mostly on private lands, and the move could be challenged in court.
Trump’s placement of Amy Coney Barrett on the Supreme Court increased its conservative majority to 6-3 and could present hurdles to Biden’s climate policy. The court could restrict the 2007 expansion of the Clean Air Act to include greenhouse gases that paved the way for Obama-era climate regulations. The court could also decide many cases on oil and gas pipelines.
Biden has also pledged to halt the Keystone XL pipeline that would transport crude from Canada’s oil sands, a project that Obama canceled but Trump revived. It is uncertain whether he supports efforts by progressives and Native Americans to stop the Dakota Access pipeline that has been caught up in legal battles.
Raises hopes for more EVs on US roads
Even before dethroning Donald Trump from the White House, US President-elect Joe Biden has been quite vocal about change in the auto industry to back his larger climate plan. After officially taking oath, Biden is set to implement his policies to step up electric vehicle production, offer incentives for EVs, reduce carbon emission besides providing jobs in the ailing industry, thanks to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Biden's climate plan includes the promise to reinstate and advance more stringent fuel economy standards that were implemented during the Obama administration but rolled back by Trump.
Under the 2012 Obama rules, automakers had to reduce carbon dioxide emissions for passenger and light-duty vehicles by 3.5% annually from 2017 to 2021 and by 5% per year from 2022 to 2025. California has been allowed to set its own, stricter zero-emissions standards, which are followed by 12 other US states.
During his campaign, Joe Biden had made it amply clear that his administration’s focus will be on green energy. Washington has been forced to rethink its long-term US sourcing strategy as China has become the world's largest producer or consumer of nearly all the metals used to make EVs, cell phones, weapons and other high-tech equipment.Biden has promised $400 billion in public investment to transition to clean energy, including advanced battery technology and electric vehicles.
Under Biden's plan, the federal government will support states and local officials to build 500,000 new electric vehicle charging outlets by the end of 2030.
That would mark a significant increase from the United States' current charging infrastructure, which counts 87,600 charging outlets, according to US Energy Department data. The European Union, by comparison, currently has 192,000 charging outlets, according to the European Alternative Fuels Observatory
Biden has said his climate plan aims to create 1 million new jobs across the auto industry, from suppliers to manufacturers and infrastructure. He has also said his policies should benefit union workers and create more unionised jobs.
Biden has said he wants to encourage consumers to buy electric cars through tax credits. The US federal government is currently subsidising electric cars with a $7,500 consumer tax break for the first 200,000 vehicles an automaker sells. So far, only Tesla Inc and General Motors have hit the cap. Subsidies for Tesla finished at the end of 2019, while those for GM ran out on March 31.
Biden has said he also wants the tax credit to benefit middle-class consumers and prioritise the purchase of vehicles made in America. That could pose a challenge to some automakers other than Tesla. Ford plans to build many of its future electric vehicles in Mexico and Canada. GM is planning premium-priced electric Cadillac and Hummer models costing more than $100,000.
Biden has also said he wants to set up a "cash for clunkers" rebate program that would encourage Americans to trade older, polluting cars for new electric vehicles.