Sen. Van Hollen on Climate Change: ‘We Have to Get Back on the World Stage’

EXCERPT:

VAN HOLLEN: “Well, first of all, we had to rejoin the Paris climate accords, because Donald Trump had isolated us by taking it out and really ceded leadership there for other countries, including China, which has invested huge sums of money in clean energy, energy efficiency, battery storage. So we have to get back on the world stage, and that — today was the first step with President Biden. But then we need here at home to back up our words and that means making investments in modernizing our grid. Look what’s happening down in Texas right now. Not only are they seeing the ravages of climate change with these huge drops in temperature, but the fact is that they were unprepared in terms of modernizing their electric grid. We need to do that in concert with putting more Americans to work in good-paying jobs, when it comes to building out our clean energy infrastructure. And that is something that President Biden laid out in great detail during the campaign, and we’re now going to have to translate that into policy action. He’s already taking some steps through executive action, using federal agencies and the purchasing power of the federal government to get a start in this area.”