Dive Brief:
- Then-President Joe Biden on Friday said more work is needed to address climate change as cities and states are battling extreme weather such as devastating wildfires, hurricanes, and floods.
- Biden spoke at the winter meeting of the U.S. Conference of Mayors. The group gave him its Distinguished Public Service Award, making him the first U.S. president to receive the nonpartisan organization’s highest honor.
- Earlier in the day, then-U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg told the mayors in attendance that social and political trust have reached “crisis levels” in U.S. society. Mayors, he said, are best positioned to form the foundation of “new and better forms of trust that will be needed for things to improve in this country.”
Dive Insight:
Biden said his administration had made the “biggest investment in fighting climate change ever in the history of the world” through the Inflation Reduction Act, as well as the jobs that accompanied the legislation.
More is needed to combat climate change, however, Biden said. Mayors need to help push Congress for extra disaster relief funding to “upgrade the power grids, plant millions of trees [and] build resilient communities that can withstand extreme weather,” he said. “Not only to rebuild, but to build back better than before.”
Biden’s speech was one of his final public appearances before President Donald Trump’s inauguration on Monday.
Biden told the conference’s more than 250 mayors that when he took office during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the economy was reeling. “Four years later, our nation and our cities emerged stronger,” he said.
Among the accomplishments he named was the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act, which he said helped get the country out of the pandemic, saved lives and provided funding directly to the cities, not through state governments.
He also touted the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure law for providing funding for new roads, bridges, clean water and affordable high-speed internet, totaling thousands of projects in communities throughout the country.
When presenting the award, Andrew Ginther, the U.S. Conference of Mayors president and the mayor of Columbus, Ohio, described the impact those laws had on cities.
“President Biden led the most productive four years for American cities in our history,” said Ginther. “It is a record that will not only stand the test of time but have profound tangible benefits for the people we serve and the cities we love.”
Buttigieg, in his speech, also cited the administration’s accomplishments, including the impact projects funded through the infrastructure law had — and will continue to have — on communities.
Continued improvements on roadway safety will be shaped at the local level, Buttigieg said. And, with advancements in transportation technologies such as drones, eVTOLs, automated vehicles and artificial intelligence, “your role will matter more than ever,” he said.
Polarization, division and misinformation now dominate national life and the public square, Buttigieg said. Mayors are essential for keeping their constituents “in touch with reality” and “build trust and common purpose,” he said.
“The community of American mayors is about to matter more than ever in these coming years,” said Buttigieg. “The trajectory of our infrastructure, the responsiveness of our democracy, the makeup of our economy, the future of our cities, [these] will be at stake in so many ways in the years ahead.”
