As per this recent Bloomberg article: “Senate Democrats are urging the White House to declare a “climate emergency” while dismissing any optimism that a climate change package could be moved swiftly through Congress in September. “The potential to enact the legislation is dead,” Senator Jeff Merkley, an Oregon Democrat, told reporters on Capitol Hill Monday evening. “This then frees up the president to use the full powers of the executive branch. And those full powers certainly include a climate emergency.”
The article continues by stating that ” Such a move could give President Joe Biden broad executive authority to redirect funds for clean energy projects or restrict offshore oil drilling. The president could even use the power to curtail the movement of fossil fuels on pipelines, trains and ships.”
This will have some major implications for the energy spectrum across the board. Given that energy prices are already very high, these measures would just make the problem worse. If this happens though, which I hope it doesn’t for the sake of energy security in the US, it could see a lot of capital move towards the nuclear power and solar/wind industries. Focusing on nuclear power in particular, it’s important to note that this administration is pro-nuclear power and that the sector has bipartisan support in the US. Any measure that will open the floodgates for more investment in green energy simply has to include nuclear power as a substantial part of that, there is simply no other way around it and recent policy decisions in the US, Japan and Europe have shown this as well.