| Welcome to The Daily 202. Tell your friends to sign up here. And starting today we've got a new newsletter pal in the mix: Maxine Joselow launched The Climate 202, which features an interview with Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan. Subscribe here! | | |  | The big idea | | The president needs climate action from Democrats to tout to world leaders |  (Washington Post illustration; Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post; iStock) | | | President Biden wants to travel to two major summits in Europe at month's end with fresh evidence of U.S. leadership on confronting the climate crisis. To do that, he needs fractious Democrats to reconcile and pass his two vast infrastructure and social-spending packages. Biden, who warned last month the world faces a "code red" on climate, will see world leaders first at a Group of 20 meeting in Rome and then head to Glasgow, Scotland, for the 26th U.N. Climate Change Conference, also known as COP26. The gatherings have long been on the president's schedule. But a series of recent developments highlight the urgent dangers climate change poses, as well as the potential of diplomatic efforts for cementing an international response. The Biden administration has pledged to slash U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by half by 2030, almost double the original U.S. commitment in the 2015 Paris climate accord. | | Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan told my colleague and The Climate 202 writer Maxine Joselow that he's not waiting for Congress to act. Regan will push ahead with "a robust greenhouse gas rule for power plants, a stringent methane rule for oil and gas infrastructure, and sweeping emissions standards for new cars, regardless of Congress's actions," he told Maxine. | | That came after my colleagues Annabelle Timsit and Sarah Kaplan reported Monday that at least 85 percent of the world's population has endured weather events exacerbated by climate change, citing new research published in the journal Nature Climate Change. "After using machine learning to analyze and map more than 100,000 studies of events that could be linked to global warming, researchers paired the analysis with a well-established data set of temperature and precipitation shifts caused by fossil fuel use and other sources of carbon emissions. These combined findings — which focused on events such as crop failures, floods and heat waves — allowed scientists to make a solid link between rising temperatures and human activities. They concluded that global warming had already affected 80 percent of the world's land area." | | COP26 will need to secure new global pledges to combat climate change, Annabelle and Sarah reported, in that current commitments "will put the planet on track to heat up about 2.7 degrees Celsius (4.9 degrees Fahrenheit) by the end of the century — a level of warming that would lead to drastic food and water shortages, deadly weather disasters and catastrophic ecosystem collapse." In a separate development Monday, "[t]wo dozen additional countries have signed up for a global methane pledge, vowing to cut emissions of the potent greenhouse gas by 30 percent by 2030," my colleagues William Booth and Steven Mufson reported. "[N]ine of the world's top 20 methane-emitting countries, accounting for 60 percent of the global economy" have now signed on, they noted. But that doesn't include some of the biggest methane emitters, like Brazil, China, India and Russia. This is on top of a sobering report in August from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which warned of catastrophic costs for inaction. As I wrote when it came out: "It's the biggest political story in the world, a grinding global crisis in public view, bringing deadlier, more violent storms, larger, more [frequent] wildfires, a promise of rising oceans that threaten to make coastal cities uninhabitable, dangerous heat waves, food and water shortages, and tropical diseases spreading beyond their traditional boundaries — crying out for action from leaders around the world." | | Government officials and environmental activists hope to secure fresh commitments at both of the summits Biden will attend. And that's where having the legislation could help the president face down skepticism that America, the world's second-largest emitter, is ready to lead. | | One big piece of Biden's stalled agenda in Congress is a $1 trillion plan to upgrade the nation's roads, bridges, ports and infrastructure. The other is a $3.5 trillion package that would patch up and strengthen America's social safety net. Both have climate elements. My colleagues Jeff Stein and Steven Mufson reported in late September that Democrats crafting the reconciliation bill had "united around an approach that largely seeks to give tax benefits to motorists, utilities and industries to encourage them to switch from using gasoline, coal and natural gas to renewable energy. The biggest climate provisions in the bill — clean energy payments to utility companies, clean energy tax credits for large firms and tax incentives for purchases of electric vehicles and bikes — seek to make the clean energy transition politically attractive through incentives rather than costs. The reconciliation bill would also impose penalties on utilities that fail to reach renewable energy targets, a concept that has aroused opposition from utilities, who have passed along their positions to Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.). Manchin said on CNN that he opposed such penalties." As for the smaller package, the New York Times's Brad Plumer and Winston Choi-Schagrin recently reported "[i]t would provide the largest single infusion of money to prepare communities for extreme weather fueled by climate change that is already underway. "It includes $47 billion over five years in resilience funding to improve the nation's flood defenses, limit damage from wildfires, develop new sources of drinking water in areas plagued by drought and relocate some communities away from high-risk areas." The Washington Post has created a dashboard of sorts to track the Biden administration's proposals and actions on climate. Check it out here. | | |  | What's happening now | | House expected to stave off default this afternoon |  Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) in the U.S. Capitol Oct. 1. (Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images) | | | The Democratic-controlled House is expected to give final approval around 4 p.m. to a bill that would temporarily raise the government's borrowing limit, pushing off the risk of default until early December. "But the short-term deal also threatens to defer a bigger, more vicious battle between Democrats and Republicans until the final days of the year. The debt-ceiling increase covers federal borrowing only until about Dec. 3, the same day that funding for key federal agencies and programs is set to expire," Tony Romm reports. | Abbott issues sweeping ban of vaccine mandates | | "Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) on Monday banned any entity in his state — including private businesses — from mandating coronavirus vaccines for workers or customers," Andrew Jeong reports. The ban comes despite the Biden administration's directive that all businesses with more than 100 employees require the jab, so court challenges are expected. | Southwest Airlines is still dealing with a passenger backlog after chaotic weekend | | More than 2,000 flights have been canceled since Friday and thousands more delayed, Luz Lazo and Ian Duncan report. "The latest problems mirrored disruptions that travelers encountered over the summer in a scenario that has become increasingly common as the industry recovers from the pandemic. Airlines have shed staff during the pandemic, and analysts say scheduling problems can more easily snowball, leading to mass flight cancellations." | Our "Jeopardy!" champ has fallen | | Thirty-eight games and $1.5 million later, "Jeopardy!" champion Matt Amodio's winning streak has come to a close. "Or, as the show mournfully announced in a news release, 'The Amodio Rodeo is over,' Emily Yahr reports. | | |  | Lunchtime reads from The Post | | Are anti-vaccine Americans who die of covid-19 "getting what they deserve?" | | Mara Judkis explores empathy in the face of vaccine deniers' deaths. "Compassion fatigue, one of the pandemic's buzzwords from earlier this summer, is passive: It's an exhaustion, especially among health-care workers, with the level of death and hostility, resulting in complete apathy. But a subset of the fatigued have lapsed into schadenfreude, that apt German psychological term, which is active: It's invested in another person's pain or loss as an outcome. It's the pleasure in another person's misfortune. It's sites like Sorry Antivaxxer, or the Twitter account Covidiot Deaths, or the Reddit forum called the Herman Cain Award, named for the former Republican presidential candidate who died of covid in July 2020." | - "Two seemingly contradictory things can be true at the same time. The sites can be ghastly places for trolls to act their cruelest, and they can also do a little bit of good by motivating a subset of their audience to get the jab."
| More than 24,000 health care workers at Kaiser Permanente have authorized a strike | | The workers' unions announced the potential strike Monday, "threatening to walk out over pay and working conditions while the coronavirus pandemic continues to strain hospitals and clinics," Jacob Bogage reports. "More than 50,000 Kaiser workers nationwide are making similar demands in contracts that will soon expire, and union leaders say more strike authorization drives could materialize in Colorado, Georgia, Hawaii, Maryland, Virginia, Washington state and D.C." | - "Workers in California and Oregon endorsed the work stoppage by an overwhelming margin in the weekend vote as they pressed Kaiser to scrap its plans for a two-tiered wage and benefits system, which would pay newer employees less than more tenured colleagues and offers them fewer health protections. They also want 4 percent raises for the next three years and a commitment to hire more nurses to relieve staffing shortages."
| Proposed North Carolina wood pellet plant raises questions about pollutants in minority communities | | Green energy manufacturing — which does affect air quality, despite its name — in the South disproportionately appears in majority minority communities, The American Prospect's Luis Feliz Leon reports. And another one was just proposed. "Proponents, who herald wood pellets as a renewable energy on par with wind and solar power, argue that the fuel combats climate change by helping to phase out power producers such as coal-burning plants. But environmental activists criticize the wood pellet trade as a dirty industry that cuts down forests and contributes to global warming." | - "The company is using Lumberton as a 'testing ground,' one resident said, treating communities of color like 'guinea pigs.'"
| | New York State's first farmworker union has formed "Farmworkers fought for years to have the legal power to unionize in New York State. Finally, in 2019, the state passed the Farm Laborers Fair Labor Practices Act, which gave agricultural and farm workers the right to collectively bargain, and granted them workers' compensation as well as unemployment benefits," The Counter's Giulia McDonnell and Nieto Del Rio report. Twelve workers at Local 338 RWDSU/UFCW have cleared a path for tens of thousands across the state. | | |  | The Biden agenda | | Biden admin dismisses criticism for using controversial Trump-era policy to expel migrants | | "Title 42, which has been used by the Trump and Biden administrations to expel hundreds of thousands of migrants who have crossed into the U.S. over the border with Mexico, refers to an obscure public health authority that allows the government to block noncitizens from entering the country during a pandemic," Caitlin Dickson of Yahoo! News reports. | - "While human rights advocates and public health experts have called for the policy to be revoked, the Biden administration has instead defended it in federal court."
- "While [Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro] Mayorkas said it is "heartbreaking" that a "material percentage" of Haitian migrants who recently arrived at the border will be expelled under Title 42, such action is "necessary as a matter of public health imperative."
| Obama to campaign for Democrats | | "Former President Barack Obama will campaign for Terry McAuliffe and Virginia Democrats ahead of the November elections, the gubernatorial nominee announced on Tuesday," CNN's Dan Merica reports. | - "McAuliffe and Virginia Democrats have grown more concerned in recent weeks that their party's base voters are not as focused on the race as they need to win, raising fears that a low turnout election with a more conservative electorate could lead Republican nominee Glenn Youngkin to victory next month."
- "Obama is one of the biggest names in Democratic politics and has long been able to garner considerable media attention and engage the party's base. Obama won Virginia twice, too, by 6 percentage points in 2008 and nearly 4 percentage points in 2012."
| The president's week ahead | | Wednesday, Biden will have a meeting about ways to address global supply chain bottlenecks and is then slated to deliver remarks. The president is scheduled to travel to Connecticut on Friday to call attention to the importance of investing in child care and promote his Build Back Better Agenda. | | |  | Multiracial Americans, visualized | |  Multiracial populations increased faster than any single race across the United States in the last census. Gains were highest in major metro areas, but the number of people identifying as multiracial also tripled in non-metro areas, according to a Washington Post analysis. | | | |  | Hot on the left | | | Columnist Michael Gerson posits that America's "nightmare prospect" of former president Donald Trump's 2025 reelection is likely. "Democrats need to significantly outperform Republicans in national matchups to obtain even mediocre results in presidential and Senate races. It means that Democrats, to remain competitive, need to win in places they don't currently win, draw from groups they don't currently draw and speak in cultural dialects they don't currently speak." | | |  | Hot on the right | | | Month's into Biden's term, Hunter is still under scrutiny — this time for making his painting debut with prices for his work set as high as $500,000. "Along with new evidence that at least some of the alleged laptop material is genuine — as well as other emerging evidence about the deals family members have sought or received from people with an interest in influencing Biden — the bipartisan outcry over the painting venture suggests that the Hunter Biden issue is not going away, and that liberals may increasingly tune in," Politico's Ben Schreckinger reports. | | |  | Today in Washington | | | Biden met virtually with G20 leaders at 8:45 a.m. to discuss "close coordination on Afghanistan" | - "Biden discussed the situation in Afghanistan with G20 leaders on Tuesday, including efforts to counter threats from extremist group Islamic State Khorasan (ISIS-K)," Reuters's Kanishka Singh reports. "The leaders also reaffirmed the commitment to provide humanitarian assistance directly to the Afghan people through independent international organizations, the White House added."
| | |  | In closing | | | In New Jersey, Republican gubernatorial nominee Jack Ciattarelli is under fire for supporting an anti-vulgarity ordinance decades ago. State Democrats released an ad Monday poking fun at the squeaky clean measure, which would have banned public profanity in one borough. | | Thanks for reading. See you tomorrow. | | |
