Biden Wants To Make Federal Government Carbon Neutral by 2050

The Biden administration announced Wednesday it aims to buy its way to a cleaner, cooler planet, spending billions to create a federal fleet of electric vehicles, upgrade federal buildings and change how the government buys electricity. From a report: The executive order President Biden signed leverages Washington's buying power to cut the government's carbon emissions 65 percent by the end of the decade. It lays out goals that would put the federal government on a path to net-zero emissions by 2050 and would add at least 10 gigawatts' worth of clean electricity to the grid. Under the new approach, federal operations would run entirely on carbon-free electricity by 2030. By 2035, the government would stop buying gas-powered vehicles, switching to zero-emission heavy-duty trucks and cars. A decade after that, most of the buildings owned or leased by the government would no longer contribute to the carbon pollution that's warming the planet. The order also instructs the government to launch a "buy clean" initiative, prioritizing products produced and transported with low greenhouse gas emissions. Sarah Bloom Raskin, a Duke University law professor who served as treasury deputy secretary under President Barack Obama, said in a recent interview that the administration's push to reduce its carbon footprint could ripple across the economy.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.