Jet-set Biden vows ‘climate-friendly’ military, flexes gas-guzzling Corvette
President Biden on Friday celebrated Earth Day in Seattle with a rambling speech vowing to make “every vehicle” in the military “climate-friendly” while admitting his personal fleet includes a prized Corvette that “does nothing but pollute.”
Biden didn’t offer specifics while telling local Democrats in a park that he intends to cut the emissions of war machines like tanks, helicopters and fighter jets.
“I’m going to start the process where every vehicle in the United States military — every vehicle is going to be climate-friendly. Every vehicle. No, I mean it. We’re spending billions of dollars to do it,” Biden said.
The president, who uses large amounts of fossil fuels for regular weekend trips home to Delaware, admitted he’s had a hard time practicing what he is preaching.
“I’m an automobile buff. I have a ’68 Corvette that does nothing but pollute the air. But I don’t drive it very much,” Biden joked, appearing to refer to his 1967 Corvette Stingray.
The gaffe-prone president’s week began with an aide dressed as an Easter bunny intervening to stop him from talking to reporters, but no staffers stepped in as he proceeded to use baby-talk to imitate a child’s plea for him to”pwomise” him to “pwease” protect the Bears Ears National Monument in Utah.
Biden then crouched behind his lectern and delivered a wide-eyed whisper to acknowledge that some people find windmills ugly.
“I made it clear to my friends up in Nantucket and that area, ‘I don’t want to hear any more about you don’t like looking at them.’ They’re pretty,” Biden said.
Biden went on to tell his crowd that he has asthma as a result of oil refineries near his childhood home in northern Delaware — despite the fact that his doctor didn’t note the ailment in an annual health report last year.
“When it came to spring, I mean it came the fall — this is the God’s truth — and you get in a car and there’s a little frost on the window, you turn on the windshield wiper, there’d be an oil slick, not a joke,” Biden said.
“I have asthma and 80 percent of the people who in fact we grew up with have asthma. That’s what you call a fenceline community. I understand what it’s like.”
Biden previously cited asthma to avoid being drafted to serve in the Vietnam War, but his memoir “Promises to Keep” didn’t mention the condition while describing football exploits and work as a lifeguard.
The president also told his audience that he wants to pay Brazil and other “third world” countries to protect their forests — but seemed to sense the derogatory implication of the term and backtracked.
“You’re not going to — maybe — like this. We should be paying the Brazilians not to cut down the forests. We got to cut ours down. We got to cut ours down. We got the benefit of it. We’ve got these third world countries — not third world, some are — in Africa and in South America. We got to — the industrial countries have to help,” Biden said.
Much of Biden’s proposed environmental spending is unlikely to pass Congress, where Democrats hold slim majorities and centrists are expressing alarm about inflation hitting 40-year highs.
Biden’s stalled Build Back Better Act seeks $555 billion in environmental spending, including $320 billion in tax credits for people to buy electric vehicles, install solar panels and improve home energy efficiency. A press release describing Biden’s annual budget proposal this year describes a $3.3 billion request “to support clean energy projects.”
Biden’s $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure law, which he signed in November, included $7.5 billion to build a national network of electric vehicle charging stations. The administration is beginning to disburse funds to install charging stations every 50 miles along major highways. That bill also included $5 billion for electric and low-emission buses.
