your patience. please have a seat if you have one.

hello, massachusetts. [cheers and applause] an honor to be with you outstanding members of congress, senator ed markey. senator elizabeth warren. and representative auchincloss, bill keating, congressman and your great former member and one john kerry is leading our special presidential envoy traveling the world and he is talking about doing more than and another great massachusetts native, gina mccarthy. national climate adviser is leading our efforts here at home. and joined by your neighbor from

rhode island, sheldon whitehouse, a great champion of the environment. i come here today with a message. we have the responsibility to act with urgency and resolve when our nation faces clear and present danger and that's what climate change is about. it is not figuratively a clear and present danger. and national climate scientists called the latest climate report code red for humanity. let me say it again. code red for humanity. he is a scientist. we see it here in america, red states and blue states, extreme weather costing $145 billion in damages just last year.

i have flown all across america. it's amazing to see. ravaging 100-year-old droughts occurring every few years than 100 years. wildfires out west and destroyed more than five million acres, everything in its path. that is more land than the entire state of new york and new jersey and down to the tip of delaware. it's amazing, five million acres. our national security is at stake. extreme weather is damaging our military installations in the states and our economy is at risk. so we have to act. extreme weather disrupts supply chains and causes delays for consumers and businesses and it is a threat to our nation and the world. my message today is this. since congress is not acting as

it should and these guys are but we aren't getting many republican votes, this is an emergency. and i will, i will look at it that way. i said it last week and will say it again, as president i will combat the climate crisis in the absence of congressional action notwithstanding their incredible action. [applause] in the coming days, my administration will announce the executive actions we have developed to combat this emergency. we need to act. just take a look around, right now 100 million americans are under a heat alert, 100 million americans, 90 cities set records including here in new england as we speak. and by the way, records have been set in the artic and ant arctic, temperatures that are unbelievable.

melting the personaliafrost and astounding and this impacts every aspect of every day life. i'm making the largest investment, $2 p .3 billion to help communities to build infrastructure that is designed to withstand the full range of disasters we have been seeing. flooding, hurricanes, fires, and people are suffering from extreme heat at home. my team is working with the states to deploy $385 million right now. for the first time, states will use federal funds to pay for air conditioners in home and set up cooling centers in schools so people can get through extreme heat and i mean people and crises in 100-117 degrees. infrastructure law as your members of congress delivered, includes $3.1 billion to

weatherize homes to make them more energy efficient that will keep america cool in the summer and warm in the winter. my department of labor led by marty walsh, he talks funny, he is a hell of a guy, marty was a great mayor and he is doing two things for me. as secretary of labor, developing the first ever workplace standards for extreme heat saying under these conditions you cannot do the following and ask people to do things. second, he is sending folks out from the labor department to make sure we hold workplaces and those standards that are being set. they have completed over 500 heat-related inspections across 43 states and in the end of the day, it will save lives. let me tell you why we are here

at brown-waiteon point. this cooling tower closed down. the largest of its kind in new england. 1, 500 megawatts of power to power massachusetts homes and businesses. over 50 years, it supported this economy through the like that they supplied and the good jobs and local taxes. but the plant, like many others around the country had another legacy, one of toxins, smog, greenhouse gas emissions to the economy we face today. a former regulator was telling me how folks used to get the ragout and wipe the gurchg off of their car's windshield not like where i grew up and more

oil refineries than houston, texas just across the line in pennsylvania and all the prevailing winds. i just lived up the road and i had an apartment complex when we moved to delaware and just up the road, holy rosary grade school and four-lane highway that was accessible and my mother drove us. and guess what? the first frost, you know what was happening? you had to put on the windshield wipers to get the oil slick off the windows and that's why so many people had cancer and delaware had the highest cancer rate in the nation. but that's the past. and we are going to build a different future. with one with clean energy, good paying jobs. just 15 years ago, americans

generated half of its like that from coal-fired plants. today that is down 20%, because there is a big transition happening. many of these fossil fuel plants are becoming sites for new clean energy construction and look at brayton point. it is on the frontier. on this sight they will manufacture 248 miles of high-tech heavy duty cable. those cables are necessary to tie offshore wind farms through the existing grid. manufacturing these cables will mean good paying jobs for 250 workers, as many workers as the old power plant had at its peak. [applause] president biden: and the port here was used to carry coal into the power plant. now we are going to use to carry

wind power into the sea. the converter station here and substation nearby is the access to move energy across the power line and will now move clean like that generated offshore by the wind and enough power to power thousands of homes and delivering clean energy. this didn't happen by accident. it happened because we believed and invested in american innovation and ingenuity. one of the companies investing here joined me at the white house this house, vineyard wind and told me about the labor agreements they negotiated with good paying union jobs. and i want to compliment congressman bill keating for his work. i am proud to point out that my administration approved the first commercial project which is being constructed by vineyard

winds. folks, elsewhere in the country, we are propelling retrofits and ensuring where fossil fuel plants retire, they still have a power. invest in converting old power plants. in california, the members have helped turned a former oil plant into the world largest battery storage facility. in wyoming, a retiring plant is a nuclear plant. and my administration is a partner, driving federal resources and funding. and that's why they need to be taken care of well. i want to thank cecil roberts and so many other labor leaders who are working on these

initiatives. since i took office, we invested $4 billion in federal funding in the hardest hit coal, from west virginia, kentucky, to wyoming and new mexico. through the infrastructure law, we investing in clean hydrogen, nuclear and carbon capture. we have secured $16 billion to clean up abandoned mines and wells, protecting thousands of communities from toxins and waste particularly methane. and we are going to seal leaking methane pollution and greenhouse gas that is 40 times more dangerous to the environment. the american leadership back on climate, i was able to bring more world leaders together and get 100 nations to agree at a major conference in england --

scotland to change the emissions for policy. we made real progress, but there is enormous task ahead. we have to keep retaining and cry recruiting trades in wind, solar and nuclear and create more and better jobs and revitalize jobs especially those who are smothered by pollution. we have to outcompete china and in the world and make these technologies here in the united states. folks, when i think about climate change and i have been saying this for three years, i think jobs. climate change, i think jobs. almost 100 wind turbines going up off the coast of massachusetts and rhode island, with ground broken and work underway. jobs manufacturing, 2, 500 ton

steel foundation that anchor these offshore wind farms to the sea's floor. jobs manufacturing, a jones act vessel in texas to service these offshore wind farms and make sure that the ocean is open for the clean energy of our future and everything we can do to give a green light to wind power on the atlantic coast where my predecessor's actions created confusion. and today, we begin the process to develop wind power in the gulf of mexico as well for the first time. a real opportunity to power millions of additional homes from wind. let's clear the way, let's clear the way for clean energy and connect these projects to the grid. i have directed my administration to clear every federal hurdle and streamline federal permitting that brings these clean energy projects right now and right away. and some of you have come up and talked to me about that.

and while so many governors and mayors have been strong partners in this fight to tackle climate change, we need all governors and mayors and public utility commissioners and need electric utilities and developers to stand up and be part of the solution. don't be a road block. we all have a duty right now to our economy, to our competitiveness in the world, to the young people in this nation and to future generations. this is real. act boldly on climate and so does congress and notwithstanding the leadership of the men and women who are here today has failed in its duty. not a single republican in congress stepped up to support my climate plan, not one. climate change is an emergency and in the coming weeks i will use the power i have as president to turn these words into formal official government

action through the appropriate proclamations and executive orders through the power that the president poses. [cheers and applause] president biden: when it comes to fighting the climate change, i will not take no for an answer. i will do everything in my power to clean our air and water, protect our peoples' health and win the clean energy future. our children and grandchildren are counting on us. not a joke. not a joke. if we don't keep it, we lose it all. we don't get to turn it around and the world is counting on us. this is the united states of america. when we put our hearts and minds to it, there is not a single thing beyond our capacity. i mean it. when we act together. and all things we should be acting together on is climate,

is climate. and by the way, my dear mother, joey, everything that is bad, something goodwill come of it. look at what is happening, we will create good paying jobs and make environments where people live safer and make the air safer. i mean it. we have the opportunity here. i bertscha when you see what happens in this cable construction manufacturing and ask all the people who grew up in this beautiful place what they would rather have. they want the plant back with everything it has or what you are going to have. i will be dumbfounded if you find anybody other than pure sentimental reasons that i would rather have a coal plant. i will end by telling you a quick story. when we moved from scranton when coal died in scranton,

everything died in scranton and my dad was a coal miner and my great-grandfather was a mining engineer and my dad was in sales and we left to go down to delaware where those oil plants were. i remember driving home when you take the trolley. within 15 blocks the most prestigious neighborhood and good decent people live, there was and go by a wall that my recollection is somewhere between 15 and 18 feet tall. and it went from a city block. and you could see the coal piled up to the very top of the wall from inside. it was a coal-fired plant.

coal-fired plant and all of that, all the negative impacts of breathing that coal, the dust, affected everybody. at the time, people didn't know it and there wasn't any alternative. folks, we have no excuse now. we know it. there are answers for it. we can make things better in terms of jobs. we can make things better in terms of the environment and better for families overall. i'm looking forward to this moment. thank you. may god bless you all and may god protect our troops. thank you. [cheers and applause] ♪

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