Hap­py Earth Day!

It’s not often that the Pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States is here in our region for an occa­sion like Earth Day, but it’s cer­tain­ly fit­ting that he is.

Here in the Pacif­ic North­west, we believe in car­ing for the Earth, our com­mon home. We are proud of our con­ser­va­tion eth­ic, our deter­mined lead­er­ship to reduce pol­lu­tion, our con­tri­bu­tions to cli­mate research, and our com­mit­ment to secure a just and respon­si­ble tran­si­tion to a clean ener­gy future.

It is grat­i­fy­ing that Pres­i­dent Biden rec­og­nizes this and has cho­sen to spend time in this great green land of Cas­ca­dia on Earth Day. Here’s an anno­tat­ed look at his plans for the day, as announced by the White House press office:

DAILY GUIDANCE AND PRESS SCHEDULE FOR
FRIDAY, APRIL 22, 2022

In the morn­ing, the Pres­i­dent will receive the President’s Dai­ly Brief. This meet­ing will be closed press.

[These Dai­ly Brief meet­ings, in which the Pres­i­dent receives impor­tant infor­ma­tion on what is hap­pen­ing in the coun­try and the world, are always closed to the press.]

Then, the Pres­i­dent will deliv­er remarks on Earth Day mak­ing the case for his bold agen­da to tack­le the cli­mate cri­sis, safe­guard our nation’s forests, and bol­ster our resilience in the face of threats like wild­fire. These remarks at Seward Park in Seat­tle, Wash­ing­ton will be cov­ered by the out-of-town pool.

[An event at which only pool cov­er­age is allowed is sim­pler to plan and imple­ment, with a lighter foot­print, due to hav­ing a small­er media pres­ence. The event will like­ly be record­ed and broad­cast through the White House web­site, how­ev­er.]

In the after­noon, the Pres­i­dent will deliv­er remarks on his recent actions to low­er costs and give fam­i­lies more breath­ing room, and will call on Con­gress to pass his plan to low­er health care and ener­gy costs. These remarks at Green Riv­er Col­lege in Auburn, Wash­ing­ton will be open press.

[Open press means that media out­lets can apply to send rep­re­sen­ta­tives to cov­er an event. The White House ensures that there is suf­fi­cient room for a larg­er num­ber of cor­re­spon­dents and pho­tog­ra­phers to report on the Pres­i­den­t’s com­ments.]

After, the Pres­i­dent will trav­el to Wilm­ing­ton, Delaware. The depar­ture from Seat­tle-Taco­ma Inter­na­tion­al Air­port will be open press. The depar­ture from Philadel­phia Inter­na­tion­al Air­port and the arrival at Delaware Air Nation­al Guard Base will be cov­ered by the out-of-town pool.

SCHEDULE

09:00 Pacif­ic	THE PRESIDENT receives the President’s Dai­ly Brief Closed Press
09:15 Pacif­ic	Out-of-Town Pool Call Time
10:30 Pacif­ic	THE PRESIDENT deliv­ers remarks on Earth Day mak­ing the case for his bold agen­da to tack­le the cli­mate cri­sis, safe­guard our nation’s forests, and bol­ster our resilience in the face of threats like wildfire Seward Park, Seat­tle, Washington Out-of-Town Pool
12:30 Pacif­ic	THE PRESIDENT deliv­ers remarks on his recent actions to low­er costs and give fam­i­lies more breath­ing room, and will call on Con­gress to pass his plan to low­er health care and ener­gy costs Green Riv­er Col­lege, Auburn, Washington Open Press
14:15 Pacif­ic	THE PRESIDENT departs Auburn, Wash­ing­ton en route Seat­tle, Washington Auburn Munic­i­pal Airport Out-of-Town Pool
14:35 Pacif­ic	THE PRESIDENT departs Seat­tle, Wash­ing­ton enroute Philadel­phia, Pennsylvania Seat­tle-Taco­ma Inter­na­tion­al Airport Open Press
22:15 East­ern	THE PRESIDENT arrives in Philadel­phia, Pennsylvania Philadel­phia Inter­na­tion­al Airport Out-of-Town Pool
22:40 East­ern	THE PRESIDENT arrives in New Cas­tle, Delaware Delaware Air Nation­al Guard Base Out-of-Town Pool

###

Rep­re­sen­ta­tives of NPI will be cov­er­ing the event in Auburn at Green Riv­er Col­lege, and we will share high­lights here on NPI’s Cas­ca­dia Advo­cate lat­er in the day. We will be watch­ing the Earth Day event at Seward Park as well via livestream while set­ting up our gear in Auburn.

The Wash­ing­ton Post reports that the Seward Park event will be tree-focused:

Biden to issue Earth Day order to safe­guard old-growth forests

The order, which the pres­i­dent will sign Fri­day in Seat­tle, aims to slow cli­mate change by stor­ing car­bon in trees

Pres­i­dent Biden will sign an exec­u­tive order on Fri­day in Seat­tle lay­ing the ground­work for pro­tect­ing some of the biggest and old­est trees in America’s forests, accord­ing to five indi­vid­u­als briefed on the plan who spoke on the con­di­tion of anonymi­ty because it was not yet finalized.

Biden will direct the For­est Ser­vice and Bureau of Land Man­age­ment to define and inven­to­ry mature and old-growth forests nation­wide with­in a year, three of the indi­vid­u­als said. He will also require the agen­cies to iden­ti­fy threats to these trees, such as wild­fire and cli­mate change, and to use that infor­ma­tion to craft poli­cies that pro­tect them.

While this might not sound like a big cli­mate action step, it is nonethe­less sig­nif­i­cant. As TreeP­AC Chair and NPI Advi­so­ry Coun­cilmem­ber Steve Zemke has writ­ten in this space, we lack use­ful and action­able data about our trees and forests at every lev­el: local, state, and fed­er­al. This exec­u­tive order could help with that. On its own, it’s not going to mit­i­gate cli­mate dam­age, but it could set the stage for the adop­tion of pol­i­cy direc­tions and poli­cies that we need.

NPI’s 2021 research found over­whelm­ing sup­port in Seat­tle for pro­tect­ing the Emer­ald City’s urban forests, with more than sev­en in ten vot­ers express­ing sup­port for a range of tree pro­tec­tion ideas test­ed in July and Octo­ber. One of those ideas was recent­ly approved by the Seat­tle City Coun­cil.

It appears that the White House plans to get Pres­i­dent Biden back to Seat­tle-Taco­ma Inter­na­tion­al Air­port by heli­copter rather than entire­ly by motor­cade. That ought to lessen the sever­i­ty of any traf­fic impacts in South King Coun­ty stem­ming from Biden’s vis­it to the Green Riv­er Col­lege in Auburn.