Biden tours flood-hit areas; calls climate change 'existential threat'
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[September 08, 2021]
By Nandita Bose
NEW YORK (Reuters) -President Joe Biden on
Tuesday toured sites of deadly floods in the Northeast and said
Hurricane Ida demonstrated the ravages of climate change as he pressed
for investments to boost infrastructure and fight global warming.
"Climate change poses an existential threat to our lives, to our
economy, and the threat is here. It's not going to get any better,"
Biden said after touring neighborhoods in New Jersey and New York City's
Queens borough that were hurt by the storm. "We can stop it from getting
worse."
It was Biden's second trip in recent days to areas slammed by the storm,
shifting his focus to domestic priorities after weeks of public
attention to the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Biden made fighting climate change a key plank of his 2020 presidential
campaign and a top priority of his administration, but some of his goals
rely on getting the U.S. Congress to pass multitrillion-dollar
legislation on infrastructure and other priorities.
Biden noted that wildfires, hurricanes and floods were hitting every
part of the United States, with more than 100 million Americans affected
this summer alone. The storms, he said, will only be getting worse.
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"Folks, we got to listen to the scientists and the economists and the
national security experts. They all tell us this is code red. The nation
and the world are in peril. That's not hyperbole. That is a fact," Biden
said.
On Friday he visited Louisiana, promising federal aid and urging
national unity. Ida devastated parts of the U.S. Gulf Coast and
unleashed even deadlier flooding in the Northeast.[L1N2Q50IA]
Biden's flood damage trips revived his familiar role of
consoler-in-chief, a shift from time spent in recent weeks defending his
decision to pull U.S. troops from Afghanistan following its deadly
aftermath.
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President Joe Biden walks on the tarmac with Col. Matthew E. Jones,
Commander of the 89th Airlift Wing, before departing to visit New
York and New Jersey to tour the hurricane-affected areas, from Joint
Base Andrews, Maryland, U.S. September 7, 2021. REUTERS/Elizabeth
Frantz
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The United States is still working in Afghanistan to
get Americans out while resettling tens of thousands of evacuees.
Still, Biden is expected to focus in the coming days on domestic
issues: a fight to protect women's reproductive rights in the wake
of a new Texas anti-abortion law, the end of extended unemployment
benefits for many Americans and new measures to fight COVID-19.
On Saturday, the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, he will
visit the three sites where hijacked U.S. domestic planes crashed.
Next week, he plans to visit California to boost Democrat Governor
Gavin Newsom's effort to stay in office amid a recall election and
to highlight the damage done by wildfires, another sign of climate
change. Vice President Kamala Harris plans to travel to California
on Wednesday.
On Tuesday, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy said it would take
"months more likely than weeks" to complete cleanup, repairs and
rebuilding after his state was ravaged by flooding and a tornado
from the remnants of Ida.
Dozens of people died during the hurricane and in its aftermath and
some states are still grappling with widespread power outages and
water-filled homes.
(Reporting by Nandita Bose and Jeff Mason; additional reporting by
Peter Szekely; Writing by Jeff Mason; Editing by Heather Timmons and
David Gregorio)
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