Philanthropist and former Democratic presidential candidate Tom Steyer is urging President Joe Biden to be ambitious in his administration's plan to tackle climate change, and that means doing more than simply reversing the retrograde policies of his predecessor.
"I think Mr. Trump never dealt with the facts on the ground, and he put in a lot of executive orders that I believe that President Biden will successfully overturn," Steyer told Cheddar.
The bigger question for Steyer is whether or not the Biden administration will successfully pass the "Build Back Better" plan the president and vice president campaigned on.
The plan sets out an expansive agenda for creating jobs, addressing racial inequality, recovering from the pandemic, and tackling climate change through infrastructure and green energy investments.
"We've really moved past the question about are we going to do this," Steyer said. "The question is how are we going to do this, how fast are we going to do this."
For the former hedge fund manager, also mobilizing the private sector to this end is essential.
"To a large extent, this is going to come down to the private sector leading in technology, leading in entrepreneurship, and really making it happen in the way that America has traditionally has won," he explained.
Responding to climate change is inevitable, Steyer added, especially with more Americans from both sides of the aisle embracing the need for a green transition. What's still up in the air is whether the U.S. economy benefits more or less from the transition.
"Honestly, if we don't lead here, if we follow the rest of the world, then these products will be created, but the jobs will be created in Shanghai. The jobs will be created in Frankfurt," he said. "We're behind. Americans can win, but that means we have to redouble our effort."
Steyer pointed to the recent announcement from GM that it will only produce zero-emission vehicles by 2035 as an example of the growing embrace of a green economy.
"Look, I was an investor for 35 years," he said. "You always have to invest in the future. You can't be investing in the ideas of the past, and we are behind. We can't spend any more time rebuilding 1950. What we need to do is build 2050 to invest in the future."
Joe Cecela, Dream Exchange CEO, explains how they are aiming to form the first minority-controlled company to operate an exchange in U.S. history. Watch!
A Michigan judge is putting sponges in the hands of shoplifters and ordering them to wash cars in a Walmart parking lot when spring weather arrives. Genesee County Judge Jeffrey Clothier hopes the unusual form of community service discourages people from stealing from Walmart. The judge also wants to reward shoppers with free car washes. Clothier says he began ordering “Walmart wash” sentences this week for shoplifting at the store in Grand Blanc Township. He believes 75 to 100 people eventually will be ordered to wash cars this spring. Clothier says he will be washing cars alongside them when the time comes.
The State Department had been in talks with Elon Musk’s Tesla company to buy armored electric vehicles, but the plans have been put on hold by the Trump administration after reports emerged about a potential $400 million purchase. A State Department spokesperson said the electric car company owned by Musk was the only one that expressed interest back in May 2024. The deal with Tesla was only in its planning phases but it was forecast to be the largest contract of the year. It shows how some of his wealth has come and was still expected to come from taxpayers.
At 100 years old, the Goodyear Blimp is an ageless star in the sky. The 246-foot-long airship will be in the background of the Daytona 500 — flying roughly 1,500 feet above Daytona International Speedway, actually — to celebrate its greatest anniversary tour. Even though remote camera technologies are improving regularly and changing the landscape of aerial footage, the blimp continues to carve out a niche. At Daytona, with the usual 40-car field racing around a 2½-mile superspeedway, views from the blimp aptly provide the scope of the event.
You'll just have to wait for interest rates (and prices) to go down. Plus, this deal's a steel, the big carmaker wedding is off, and bribery is back, baby!
It’s a chicken-and-egg problem: Restaurants are struggling with record-high U.S. egg prices, but their omelets, scrambles and huevos rancheros may be part of the problem. Breakfast is booming at U.S. eateries. First Watch, a restaurant chain that serves breakfast, brunch and lunch, nearly quadrupled its locations over the past decade to 570. Fast-food chains like Starbucks and Wendy's added more egg-filled breakfast items. In normal times, egg producers could meet the demand. But a bird flu outbreak that has forced them to slaughter their flocks is making supplies scarcer and pushing up prices. Some restaurants like Waffle House have added a surcharge to offset their costs.
William Falcon, CEO and Founder of Lightning AI, discusses the ongoing feud between Elon Musk and Sam Altman, and how everyday people can use AI in their lives.
