ウィスパリング同時通訳研究会コミュのJoe Biden Introduces Picks for Climate & Energy Team

Joe Biden: (00:00)
… of our time, climate change. Excuse me. Like their fellow Cabinet nominees and appointees, members of our environmental and energy team are brilliant. They’re qualified, tested, and they are barrier-busting. Today, the announcement we will make is the sixth of African-American members of our Cabinet, which is a record. After today, our Cabinet won’t just have one or two precedent-breaking appointments, but 12, including today’s long overdue appointment of the first Native American Cabinet Secretary. And welcome. Welcome. Welcome. Thanks for being willing to do this.
(00:41)
Already, there are more people of color in our Cabinet than any Cabinet ever, more women than ever. The Biden-Harris Cabinet, it will be historic, a Cabinet that looks like America, that taps into the best of America, that opens doors and includes the full range of talents we have in this nation. And like the rest of the team today’s nominees are ready on day one, which is essential because we literally have no time to waste.
(01:12)
Just this year, wildfires burned more than five million acres in California and Washington state. Across the West, an area roughly the size of the entire state of New Jersey literally burned to the ground. Intense and powerful hurricanes, tropical storms pummeled Florida, Louisiana, North Carolina, across the Gulf, and along the East Coast. Record floods, hurricane-speed windstorms, and severe droughts ravaged the Midwest, and more Americans see and feel the devastation in big cities, small towns, on coastlines and in farmlands, and red states and in blue.
(01:55)
Look, billions of dollars in damage, homes and memories washed away, small businesses closed for good, crops and farmlands destroyed for the next generation of family farmers, and just last year, the defense department reported that climate change is a direct threat to more than two thirds of our military operational critical installations in the world, particularly in the United States. And this could well be a conservative estimate.
(02:26)
And so many climate and health calamities are colliding all at once. It’s not just a pandemic that keeps people inside. It’s poor air quality. Multiple studies have shown air pollution is associated with the increased risk of death from COVID-19. Folks, we’re in a crisis. Just like we need to be a unified nation in response to COVID-19, we need a unified national response to climate change. We need to meet the moment with the urgency it demands as you would during national emergency. And from this crisis, from these crises, I should say, we need to seize the opportunity to build back and build back better than we were before. That’s what this administration is going to do with the help of these fine people.
(03:16)
When we think about climate change, we think jobs, good-paying union jobs. A key plank of our Build Back Better economy and economic plan is building a modern, climate-resistant infrastructure and a clean energy future. We can put millions of Americans to work, modernizing water, transportation, and energy infrastructure to withstand the impacts of extreme weather. When we think about renewable energy, we see American manufacturers, American workers racing to lead the global market. We see farmers making agriculture first in the world to achieve net-zero emissions and gaining new sources of income in the process on the farm. And we see small businesses and master electricians designing and installing innovative, energy-conserving buildings and homes. We’re going to reduce electric consumption and save hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in energy costs. And we will challenge everyone, everyone to step up.
(04:20)
And we’ll bring America back, back into the Paris Agreement, and put us back in the business of leading the world on climate change again. The current administration reversed the Obama-Biden fuel-efficiency standards and picked Big Oil companies over American workers. Our administration will not only bring those standards back. We’ll set new, ambitious standards that our workers are ready to meet today.
(04:47)
We see American workers building and installing over 500,000 electric vehicle charging stations across this country. We see American consumers switching to electrical vehicles through rebates and incentives. And not only that, the federal government owns a maintains an enormous fleet of vehicles. We’re going to harness the purchasing power of our federal government to make sure we’re buying clean electric vehicles that are made and sourced by union workers right here in America. Altogether, this will mean one million, one million new jobs in the American auto industry.
(05:24)
And we’ll do another big thing, put us on a path of achieving a carbon- pollution-free electric sector by the year 2035 that no future president can turn back. Transforming the American electric sector to produce power without carbon pollution will be the greatest spur to job creation and economic competitiveness in the 21st century, not to mention the benefits to our health and our environment.
(05:54)
But we need to get to work. We got to get to work right away. We’ll need scientists at national labs, land-grant universities, historic Black colleges and universities to innovate the technologies needed to generate, store, and transmit this clean energy. We’ll need engineers to design them, workers to manufacture them. We’ll need iron workers and welders to install them. That’s how we’re going to become the world’s largest exporter of these technologies, creating even more jobs.
(06:25)
We know how to do this. The Obama-Biden administration reduced the auto industry and … [inaudible 00:06:31] rescued the automobile industry while reducing pollution and, at the same time, helped them retool. We made solar cost competitive with traditional energy, weatherized more than a million homes. Recovery Act made record clean energy investments, $90 billion, on everything from smart grid systems to clean energy manufacturing, and we’re going to do it again, but this time bigger, faster, and better than before.
(07:01)
We’re also going to build 1.5 million new energy-efficient homes and public housing units that will benefit our communities three times over by alleviating the affordable housing crisis, by increasing energy efficiency, and by reducing the racial wealth gap linked to home ownership. We’re going to create more than a quarter-million jobs right away to do things like working toward plugging the 3,200,000 abandoned oil and gas Wells that the EPA says pose an ongoing threat to the health and safety of our communities. They’re going to be good-paying union jobs doing that.
(07:42)
We’re going to launch a new, modern-day Civilian Climate Corps to heal our public lands and make us less vulnerable to wildfires and floods. And I believe that every American has a fundamental right to breathe clean air and drink clean water. I know that we haven’t fulfilled that right. No, we haven’t fulfilled that right for a generation or more in places like Cancer Alley in Louisiana or right here in my state along Route 9, the Delaware Corridor.
(08:14)
Fulfilling this basic obligation to all Americans, especially low-income white, Black, brown, and Native American communities who too often don’t have the clean air and clean water … It’s not going to be easy, but it’s absolutely necessary. And we are committed to facing climate change by delivering environmental justice. These aren’t pie-in-the-sky dreams. These are concrete, actionable solutions, and the team’s going to get it done.
(08:44)
For the Secretary of the Interior, I nominate Congresswoman Deb Haaland. She’s of the Pueblo people, only 35 generations in New Mexico, and she’s from a military family. Her mom, also Pueblo, served in the United States Navy. Her dad, a Norwegian American and Marine, now buried in Arlington. A single mom, she raised her child while running a small business. When times were tough, they relied on food stamps. Congresswoman Haaland graduated from law school and then got involved in politics, public life.
(09:20)
Two years ago, she became one of the first Native American women to serve in the United States Congress. She serves on the Armed Service Committee and the Committee on Natural Resources and chairs the subcommittee on National Parks, Forests, and Public Lands, which I have an incredibly sincere interest in. Where she learned, she learned and she earned the respect of a broad coalition of people from tribal leaders to environmental groups to labor.
(09:49)
As the first Native American Cabinet Secretary in the history of United States of America, she’ll be a true steward of our national parks, our natural resources, and all of our lands. The federal government has long broken promises to Native American tribes, who’ve been on this land since time immemorial. With her appointment, Congresswoman Haaland will help me strengthen the nation-to-nation relationship, and I’m honored to accept … She’s been willing when I called her to accept this critical role. Again, Deb, thank you for doing this.
(10:24)
For Secretary of Energy, I nominate Governor Jennifer Granholm, first woman … Where is Jennifer? Back there. She’s a great friend as well … first woman ever to serve as governor of Michigan. In 2009, she faced the collapse of the defining industry of her state and our nation, but I saw firsthand how she responded. She bet on the auto workers. She bet on the promise of a clean energy future. Her leadership helped rescue the automobile industry in the United States of America, helped save a million American jobs. It helped bring Detroit back.
(11:04)
Governor Granholm is just like the state she’s led so efficiently and effectively for eight years, hard-working, resilient, and forward-thinking, someone not only capable of solving urgent problems, but someone who sees the opportunities of the future, and always, always with her eyes on the needs and aspirations of working people. We’ve become friends over time together throughout her career.
(11:29)
She’s worked with states, cities, business, and labor to promote clean energy future with new jobs, new industry, cleaner and more affordable energy. Now I am asking her to bring that vision and faith in America to the Department of Energy. Thank you [inaudible 00:11:45]. I appreciate it a bunch.
(11:49)
For Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, I nominate Michael Regan. Michael is a proud son of North Carolina. He turned a passion for exploring the woods and waters and Inner Coastal Plain into a deep expertise in environmental science. He got his start at the EPA serving with both Democrat and Republican administrations, working in everything from reducing air pollution to improving energy efficiency. He currently serves as Secretary of North Carolina’s Department of Environmental Quality. When the governor told me how wonderful he was, I don’t think he expected that I was going to try to steal him, but Governor, thank you very much for putting up with me. But in Environmental Quality, he’s brought to the people across the public and private and nonprofit sectors to help build new clean energy economy, creating quality jobs and confronting climate change.
(12:45)
He led the charge to clean up the Cape Fear River, contaminated for years by dangerous toxic chemicals. He created North Carolina’s first board of its kind to address environmental justice and equality and equity. It helps lift up frontline and fenceline communities. They’re those communities that live along … that literally have fences separating them from the plants that are polluting, chemical and other plants that are polluting … helps lift up those frontline and fenceline communities who carried the burdens of industrial progress for much too long without sharing in any of the benefits.
(13:25)
Michael would be the second African-American official and the first African-American man to serve in this position. He shares my belief in forming consensus and finding common purpose. He’s a leader who will respect the EPA’s place as the world’s premier environmental protection agency and reassert that as the world premier agency that safeguards our entire planet, protects our lives, and strengthens our economy for all Americans.
(13:54)
And to chair the Council on Environmental Quality, I nominate Brenda Mallory, an accomplished public servant, brilliant environmental-
(14:03)
An accomplished public servant, brilliant environmental lawyer, daughter of a working class family who has dedicated her life to solving the most complex environmental challenges facing America. She’s served in both Democratic and Republican administrations, helping safeguard our public lands, helping communities manage the natural resources responsibilities.
(14:25)
Chairman of the CEO, Council of Economic Quality, I’m asking her to coordinate our environmental efforts across the entire federal government to solve some of the most persistent environmental problems America faces today. Brenda would be the first African-American official to hold this critical position. We are fortunate that one of the most widely respected environmental leaders in the country accepted the call to serve again. Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. To serve as the first ever national climate advisor.
(14:59)
By the way, when we were in the back, we were talking about the environment, and I turned and said that this particular person’s forgotten more about the environment than most people know. I wasn’t sure she was going to do it, but the first ever national climate advisor to lead the newly formed White House Office of Domestic Policy, I’m appointing Gina McCarthy.
(15:24)
Gina was the former EPA administrator. In this role she led the office. It shows how serious I am to ask her to come back, and it shows how committed she is to be willing to come back. Gina has got more than 20 years of experience, and she’s a policy wonk and a people person, a problem solver, and a coalition builder. As EPA administrator, she was instrumental in carrying out the Obama Biden climate action plan, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, getting toxins out of the air we breathe, conserving critical water sources. She led our effort to help lower carbon emissions of existing power plants and power plants in the future. We’re doing the necessary work here at home. She helped us rally the world around the Paris Climate Accords.
(16:12)
Today, I’m asking her to take a singular focus on carrying out the ambitious climate agenda here at home and working with my special envoy, former secretary of state John Kerry, who leads our climate effort around the world. I’m grateful that she agreed to do it. I’m looking forward to working alongside her again. I used to drive her crazy when I was vice president, always calling, asking all these questions, and she’s thinking, “My god, what’s he going to do as president?”
(16:47)
To serve as our national climate advisor, I appoint Ali Zandi … Zaidi, excuse me. Ali, you can call me Bidden. If I mispronounced your last name. I apologize. He served as a top climate advisor to president Obama and me in the office with managing the budget and the domestic policy council. He helped draft and implement our climate action plan and secure the Paris Climate Agreement. He currently serves as New York deputy secretary of energy and environment and the state’s chairman of climate policy and finance. He’s helping to create jobs generating solar and wind power, jobs building electric charging stations, and a more modern grid of bold climate action grounded in science, economic and public health. He’s an immigrant from Pakistan who grew up in the rust belt outside of Erie, Pennsylvania. I was from the better part of the state in Northeast, the Scranton and Pittsburgh area.
(17:49)
All kidding aside, he knows we can beat climate crisis and we can do it with jobs. He knows we can deliver environmental justice and revitalize communities as well, too often overlooked and forgotten, and every day, he’ll walk into the White House knowing the world is looking for America to lead.
(18:10)
I say to each one of you, thank you for answering the call, and thank you to your families. We could not do this without them. We couldn’t do it without you. To the career civil servants at the agencies, I know many of you have felt forgotten for a long time. We look forward to working with you, to once again carrying out your department’s mission and honoring the integrity of the offices in the organization you’re involved with.
(18:36)
To the American people, yes, the goals I’ve laid out are bold, the challenges ahead are daunting, but I want you to know that we can do this. We must do this, and we will do this. We are America. There’s nothing we can’t do when we do it together. So I say again to all of you, God bless you all, may God protect our troops, and now I’m going to turn this to the team, starting with our next Secretary of the Interior, congresswomen Deb Haaland. Deb, the floor is yours once they clean off …

Deb Haaland: (19:38)
Thank you. Thank you. I’m proud to stand here on the ancestral homelands of the Lenape tribal nation. The President-elect and vice president-elect are committed to a diverse cabinet, and I’m honored and humbled to accept their nomination for Secretary of the Interior.
(19:59)
Growing up in my mother’s pueblo household made me fierce. My life has not been easy. I struggled with homelessness. I relied on food stamps and raised my child as a single mom. These struggles give me perspectives, though, so that I can help people to succeed. My grandparents, who were taken away from their families as children and sent to boarding school in an effort to destroy their traditions and identities, maintained our culture.
(20:29)
This moment is profound when we consider the fact that a former secretary of the interior once proclaimed his goal to “civilize or exterminate us.” I’m a living testament to the failure of that horrific ideology.
(20:46)
I also stand on the shoulders of my ancestors and all the people who have sacrificed so that I can be here. My dad was a U.S. Marine, and no matter where we were stationed, he made sure we spent time outdoors. Time with my dad in the mountains or on the beach and time with my grandparents in the cornfield at Laguna taught me to respect the earth and to value our resources. I carry those values with me everywhere. I’m a product of their resilience.
(21:18)
As our country faces the impacts of climate change and environmental injustice, the interior department has a role to address these challenges, the President-elect’s goals, driven by justice and empowering communities who have shouldered the burdens of environmental negligence, and we will ensure that the decisions at interior will once again be driven by science.
(21:46)
We know that climate change can only be solved with participation of every department and of every community. Coming together in a common purpose, this country can and will tackle this challenge. The President-elect and vice president-elect know that issues under interior’s jurisdiction aren’t simply about conservation. They’re woven in with justice, good jobs and closing the racial, wealth and health gaps.
(22:18)
This historic moment will not go by without the acknowledgement of the many people who have believed in me over the years and had the confidence in me for this position. I’ll be fierce for all of us, for our planet and all of our protective land, and I’m honored and ready to serve. Thank you again.