With stroke of pen, Biden returns the US to the Paris Climate Agreement

Washington: Within hours of his inauguration, US President Joe Biden returned the US to the international Paris Agreement to fight climate change, the centrepiece of a raft of day-one executive orders aimed at restoring US leadership in combating global warming.

The announcements also included a sweeping order to review all of former President Donald Trump's actions weakening climate change protections, the revocation of a vital permit for TC Energy's Keystone XL oil pipeline project from Canada, and a moratorium on oil and gas leasing activities in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge that Trump's administration had recently opened to development.

President Joe Biden signs his first executive orders in the Oval Office of the White House.Credit: AP

The orders by the newly sworn-in President will mark the start of a major policy reversal in the world’s second-largest greenhouse gas emitter behind China, after the Trump administration pilloried climate science and rolled back environmental regulation to maximise fossil fuel development.

Biden has promised to put the United States on a track to net-zero emissions by 2050 to match the steep and swift global cuts that scientists say are needed to avoid the most devastating impacts of global warming, using curbs on fossil fuels and massive investments in clean energy.

The path will not be easy, though, with political divisions in the United States, opposition from fossil fuel companies, and wary international partners concerned about US policy shifts obstructing the way.

"We got off track very severely for the last four years with a climate denier in the Oval Office," said John Podesta, an adviser to former president Barack Obama, who helped craft the 2015 Paris Agreement. "We enter the international arena with a credibility deficit."

In a busy day on Capitol Hill, three new Democratic senators were sworn in to office by Vice-President Kamala Harris. That means their party now has control of the White House and Congress for the first time in a decade.

Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff both won Senate run-off elections in Georgia earlier this month, defeating Republicans Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue. Alex Padilla was appointed by California's Governor to fill Harris' seat.

Harris delivered the oath of office to the new Democratic senators just hours after taking her own oath at the Capitol alongside Biden. The three Democrats join a Senate narrowly split 50-50 between the parties, but giving Democrats the majority with Harris able to cast the tie-breaking vote.

Vice-President Kamala Harris walks in the parade during the Presidential Escort, part of Inauguration Day.Credit: AP

“Today, America is turning over a new leaf. We are turning the page on the last four years; we're going to reunite the country, defeat COVID-19, rush economic relief to the people,” Ossoff told reporters at the Capitol. “That’s what they sent us here to do.”

Ossoff, a former congressional aide and investigative journalist, and Warnock, a pastor from the late Martin Luther King jnr's church in Atlanta, won run-off elections in Georgia this month, defeating two Republicans.

Wednesday was Harris' first time presiding over the Senate.

Taken together, their arrival gives Democrats for the first time in a decade control of the Senate, the House and the White House, as Biden faces the unparalleled challenges of the COVID-19 crisis and its economic fallout, and the nation's painful political divisions from the deadly January 6 siege of the Capitol by a mob loyal to Donald Trump.

New senators: the Democrat victors in the Georgia run-offs, Raphael Warnock (left) and Jon Ossoff. Credit: AP

The pandemic has claimed 400,000 American lives, and Biden is proposing a $US1.9 trillion recovery package to distribute vaccines and shore up an economy struggling from the virus shutdowns.

At the same time, the Senate is about to launch an impeachment trial of Trump, charged by the House of inciting the insurrection at the Capitol as rioters tried to interrupt the Electoral College tally and overturn Biden's election. The Senate will need to confirm Biden's cabinet nominees as he launches the new administration.

To “restore the soul” of the country requires “unity”, Biden said in his inaugural speech.

“We can do great things, important things,” Biden said from the Capitol's west front. “We can make America once again a leading force of good in the world.”

Yet, as Washington looks to turn the page from Trump to the Biden administration, Republican leader Mitch McConnell is not relinquishing power without a fight.

McConnell is is refusing to enter a power-sharing agreement with Senate Democrats unless they meet his demands, chiefly to preserve the Senate filibuster — the procedural tool often used by the minority party to block bills under rules that require 60 votes to advance legislation.

It's an arcane fight McConnell has inserted into what has traditionally been a more routine organising resolution, but a power play by the outgoing Republican leader grabbing at tools that can be used to block Biden's agenda.

Progressive and liberal Democrats are eager to do away with the filibuster to advance Biden's priorities more quickly, but not all rank-and-file Senate Democrats are on board and new Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has not agreed to any changes.

Instead, Schumer has proposed an organising resolution modelled after a 2001 agreement reached between the two leaders the last time the chamber was evenly divided. It allowed equal representation on committees, shared resources for offices and other needs and made no mention of filibuster changes at all.

Talks have hit a stalemate, leaving Senate action uncertain.

Biden has said he wants Congress to press ahead on all fronts, confirming his nominees and considering his legislative priorities, but also holding the former president responsible during the impeachment trial.

That’s a tall order for a Senate under normal circumstances, but even more so now in the post-Trump era, with Republicans badly split between their loyalties to the defeated president and wealthy donors who are distancing themselves from Republicans who back Trump.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi is expected to soon transmit to the Senate the House-passed article of impeachment against Trump, charged with incitement of insurrection, a step that will launch the Senate impeachment trial.

It will take unanimous consent among senators to toggle between conducting votes on legislative business and serving as jurors in the impeachment trial. The House last week impeached Trump for having sent the mob to the Capitol to “fight like hell” during the tally of Electoral College votes to overturn Biden’s election.

In his own final acts as majority leader, McConnell made a break with Trump, blaming the defeated president for having “provoked” the mob. But, even as he lost control of the Senate, he also said Biden’s election was not a “referendum” on the new President’s agenda but a mixed result.

AP

US power and politics

Understand the election result and its aftermath with expert analysis from US correspondent Matthew Knott. Sign up here.