President Biden urged immediate actions on climate change on Wednesday, saying "[w]e can't wait any longer to deal with climate crisis" during an event promoting his Build Back Better agenda
Driving the news: The U.S. is currently facing an extreme heat wave and heavy wildfires in the West, a deadly drought and the the earliest fifth-named Atlantic tropical storm on record currently going through the Southeast.
- The calamities playing out across the country may have repercussions in Washington as lawmakers debate potentially huge investments for the country's aging infrastructure, per Axios' Andrew Freedman.
- White House climate adviser Gina McCarthy told Punchbowl News earlier Wednesday that the current climate-related events ravaging the U.S. "are things that remind us that time is running out here."
What he's saying: "Last year ... more than 10 million acres burned in the West, 10 million acres, not counting the lives lost and homes lost," Biden said. "[That is] more land that exists in my home state of Delaware and my neighbor state of Maryland combined. It's as if a fire swept through and took out every single thing in the state of Delaware and Maryland."
- "Extreme weather isn't just in the West. In Illinois, farmers downstate are dealing with more frequent droughts. Two weeks ago, just south of here, you just had a newly unprecedented tornado," the president added.
- "We can't wait any longer to deal with climate crisis, we see with our own eyes, and it's time to act."