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Biden to act on land protections, clemency, and AI in final weeks of Presidency
President Joe Biden plans actions on land protections, clemency, and AI to solidify his legacy before Trump's inauguration
President Joe Biden intends to implement land protections, clemency, and artificial intelligence in the closing weeks of his administration in an effort to solidify his legacy before to Donald Trump's inauguration.
The actions are the most recent as Biden scrambles to secure important documents prior to a power shift that would undo many of them. White House communications director Ben LaBolt wrote the document, which lays out a defence of the Biden record and notes that several of the programs are still years away from reaching their full potential.
“A presidency is not measured just in weeks, months, or four-year terms alone – rather its impact is evaluated for years and decades to come,” LaBolt wrote in the documents cited in a Bloomberg report. “The seeds President Biden and Vice President Harris planted over the past four years are beginning to sprout and their potential will be fully unleashed long into the future.”
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Trump is getting ready to issue a number of orders, some of which might target important Biden agenda items, on his first day in office. Although the slim margin in the House of Representatives may make it more difficult, the Republican sweep of Congress also paves the way for undoing some of Biden's legislative successes as per Bloomberg reports.
The triumph of Trump over Kamala Harris has caused Democrats to reflect and rethink their approach to winning over people. The fundamental decision in that process is whether to aggressively reshape the party in a different way or to closely resemble the model that Biden used to win the White House in 2020.
Biden has been the target of some of that introspection, including censure from supporters for his choice to pardon his son, Hunter Biden.
A series of initiatives to preserve his legacy will take place in the last weeks of his presidency. Last week, Biden hosted a symposium on women's health and delivered a speech criticising his economic performance. In one area where Trump could change his mind, his Environmental Protection Agency awarded $735 million in grants for renewable energy cars.
Also read: Biden commutes roughly 1,500 sentences and pardons 39 people in biggest single-day act of clemency
LaBolt signaled four key areas with announcements forthcoming:
- Artificial intelligence, without specifying the measures, and student debt cancellation
- New funding awards via the 2022 computer chips law, the Inflation Reduction Act, and high-speed Internet funds for states
- Biden will “continue taking action to protect our lands and waters and continue our climate ambition alongside state, local, and tribal and business leaders.”
- New commutations and pardons, which LaBolt didn’t detail, though the White House hasn’t ruled out attempts to pardon people in advance of what it believes would be vindictive efforts by Trump’s administration to prosecute top Democrats.
LaBolt praised the final deal to provide Micron Corp. with about $6.2 billion in program subsidies to increase American semiconductor production, which is anticipated to generate sustainable energy investments and thousands of jobs at plants in New York and Idaho.
