Biden announces $600 million for climate change while touring Northern California

California Construction News staff writer

President Joe Biden announced $600 million in federal funding to fight the effects of climate change after touring a Northern California nature reserve with Gov. Gavin Newsom last week.

“California’s wildfires, heat waves, and extreme swings from drought to flooding show how climate change is impacting our communities,” Newsom said. “There is no better partner in the fight against climate change than President Biden, who is making unprecedented investments and approaching this crisis with urgency.

“This new federal funding will support our ongoing climate action to protect our coastal communities from rising oceans and build the clean energy we need.”

Funding will be awarded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration under the Inflation Reduction Act, will help coastal and Great Lakes communities susceptible to storm surge, sea level rise and flooding and support innovative solutions to boost climate resilience.

“I’ve toured many sites across the country that clearly show climate change is a genuine existential — the existential threat to humanity,” Biden said at the Lucy Evans Baylands Nature Interpretive Center in the San Francisco Bay.

“Throughout our history we’re the only nation in the world that has come out of every crisis we’ve entered stronger than we went into,” Biden said. “We’re doing it again here on the climate crisis.”

Newsom transferred $10 million of his state campaign funds to a new federal political action committee, the Campaign for Democracy, which he said he created to help Democrats in the 2024 election and push back on Republican leaders who “ban books,” “kidnap migrants” and “stoke racism.”

California’s Climate Commitment, the $48 billion climate budget, includes $4.1 billion in climate resilience funding:

• $1.4 billion in investments over multiple years for nature-based solutions
• $1.6 billion in investments over multiple years to promote community resilience
• $734 million in investments over multiple years for coastal resilience

On June 1, the Coastal Conservancy awarded $78 million for climate resilience, public access, habitat restoration and wildfire resilience projects.