US Politics

US politicsDemocrats’ stinging Virginia defeat raises stark questions for Biden’s tenureAnalysis: Glenn Youngkin’s victory comes as the president’s agenda has stalled and danger looms for the party in Congress David Smith in Tysons, Virginia@smithinamericaWed 3 Nov 2021 01.02 EDTLast modified on Wed 3 Nov 2021 02.42 EDTJoe Biden exuded confidence. “We’re going to win,” the US president told reporters before departing Cop26 in Glasgow. “I think we’re going to win in Virginia.”But as Biden returns to Washington, he faces questions about why his prediction was so wrong – and whether Democrats’ loss in the most important election of the year will send his presidency into a downward spiral.Republican Glenn Youngkin poised to win Virginia governor’s race in blow to BidenRead moreThe Republican Glenn Youngkin’s surprise victory over the Democrat Terry McAuliffe in the race for governor of Virginia is a brutal rebuke for Biden, who had personally invested in the race, twice making the short trip from Washington to campaign for McAuliffe at rallies.It will particularly sting because Donald Trump, whom he defeated in Virginia by 10 percentage points in last year’s presidential election, will doubtless seek to claim credit for the result and savor his revenge.But the truth is that this election was more about the current president than the spectre of the last one.Biden’s ambitious agenda has stalled in Congress. By his own admission, the inertia has sucked oxygen away from priorities such as a police reform and voting rights, disillusioning the activists who fuel Democratic turnout. Inflation and gasoline prices are up. Global supply chains are buckling. And Biden’s sunny predictions for post-withdrawal Afghanistan were as off the mark as his predictions for Virginia.The president’s sagging approval rating of 42% combined with historical headwinds to drag McAuliffe down. Nothing energizes a political movement like opposition: the president’s party has lost every election for governor of Virginia over almost half a century – the exception was McAuliffe himself in 2013.But this time McAuliffe failed to inspire. The chairman of Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential primary campaign had a distinct whiff of Clinton 2016: a career politician imbued with a sense of entitlement who constantly found himself on the defensive against an upstart candidate drawing bigger crowds.Like Hillary Clinton’s reference to “deplorables”, McAuliffe made a perceived gaffe – “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach” – which was replayed endlessly in Youngkin attack ads.McAuliffe’s central argument – that Youngkin is an acolyte of Trump – was about the past. Youngkin’s central argument – that schools are under attack from culture warriors on race and gender – was about the future, even if it was riddled with falsehoods. To many voters, the future tends to be more persuasive.Enough of them did not seem to know or care that Youngkin’s arguments on schools were based on a lie. He stoked fears about critical race theory being taught in schools – it isn’t – with a caricature of Black children learning to think they are victims and white children learning to self-hate.It cut through and proved effective in a febrile, pandemic-era atmosphere where parents shout and even turn violent at school board meetings debating issues such as gender identity and mask mandates. Whereas McAuliffe wanted to nationalize the election, Youngkin managed to keep it local, albeit by tapping into Fox News talking points following last year’s Black Lives Matter protests.Expect this incendiary mix of children and racism to be chapter one of the Republican playbook in next year’s midterm elections for Congress. Expect chapter two to be How to Deal with a Problem Called Donald Trump.The 45th president will still be welcome in the safe districts of the Make America Great Again nation, sure to draw fanatical crowds and turn out the vote. But in swing states, Youngkin has shown Republicans the way to have their cake and eat it too.In the Republican primary, he praised Trump and fanned his false claims of voter fraud by raising concerns about “election integrity”. In the general election, he was willing to tacitly pat Trump on the back without ever embracing him – he eschewed mentions of the former president in campaign speeches and must have been tremendously relieved that Trump never turned up in person.Youngkin squared the circle that many Republicans have struggled with, creating a template for how to win over moderates and independents without alienating the Trump base, or vice versa. Call it the Goldilocks principle of strategic ambiguity: neither too hot nor too cold, but just the right temperature.Democrats knew exactly what he was doing. McAuliffe relentlessly tried to conflate Youngkin with Trump. At a rally last week, Biden warned: “Extremism can come in many forms. It can come in the rage of a mob driven to assault the Capitol. It can come in a smile and a fleece vest. Either way, the big lie is still a big lie.”But it was all in vain.Youngkin, like Trump, might have emphasized his status as a businessman and political outsider but otherwise came over as a suburban dad, more polished and less profane: the acceptable face of Trumpism. Yet his tactics were just as dark, dishonest and divisive.Democrats will now need to find a counter-strategy fast. Some commentators have suggested that members of the House and Senate could desert Biden and rush to the exits, retiring rather than facing a bloodbath in the midterms, so weakening the president’s hand at a crucial moment for his agenda. Virginia is a warning cry that the party needs strong leadership to get it done before things fall apart.Wednesday marks the first anniversary of Biden’s defeat of Trump in a presidential election like no other. But the pandemic of Trumpism rages in new and unexpected ways – and the Youngkin variant may prove among the most dangerous.TopicsUS politicsVirginiaJoe BidenDemocratsRepublicansUS CongressanalysisReuse this content More

VirginiaRepublican Glenn Youngkin wins Virginia governor’s race in blow to BidenYoungkin stoked culture wars on education while walking political tightrope over Donald Trump David Smith in Tysons, Virginia@smithinamericaWed 3 Nov 2021 00.55 EDTFirst published on Wed 3 Nov 2021 00.33 EDTJoe Biden suffered a bitter political blow early on Wednesday when Democrats went down in a shock defeat in the election for governor of Virginia.The Democratic candidate, Terry McAuliffe, had campaigned with Biden and Barack Obama but it was not enough to prevent the Republican Glenn Youngkin pulling off an upset.The AP called the race for Youngkin in the early hours of Wednesday morning. The Republican took an early lead after polls closed that he maintained throughout the evening, while McAuliffe lagged in key counties that Biden swept in 2020.Clenching his fists then clapping his hands, Youngkin addressed jubilant supporters in Chantilly just after 1am. “All righty, Virginia, we won this thing!” he exclaimed. “How much fun!”The 54-year-old political neophyte described it as “a defining moment” for millions of Virginians “sharing dreams and hopes”. Youngkin promised: “Together, we will change the trajectory of this commonwealth and friends, we are going to start that transformation on day one. There is no time to waste.”In a nod to what became his defining campaign issue, the Republican said: “We are going to restore excellence in our schools… We are going to introduce choice in our public school system… Friends, we’re going to embrace our parents, not ignore them. We’re gonna press forward with a curriculum that includes listening to parents’ input.”As on the campaign trail, Youngkin did not utter the name “Trump”.The battle in Virginia has been seen as a litmus test of Biden’s presidency one year after he won the White House, and it coincided with his agenda stalling in Congress and his approval rating sinking to 42%.“The fight continues,” said McAuliffe in a speech on Tuesday night, thanking his campaign staff for a hard-fought race, but stopping short of a concession.“We’ve got to make sure we protect women’s right to choose here in the commonwealth of Virginia. We’ve got to make sure everyone gets quality, affordable healthcare here in the commonwealth of Virginia. Everybody’s entitled to a world-class education here in the commonwealth of Virginia and we are going to continue that fight tonight, and every day going forward.”McAuliffe’s all-out effort to portray Youngkin as an acolyte of Donald Trump proved less effective than the Republican’s laser-like focus on whipping up parents’ fear and anger about culture war issues in Virginia’s schools.Youngkin made false claims that critical race theory – an analytic framework through which academics examine the ways that racial disparities are reproduced by the law – is rampant in the state’s education system (in fact it is not taught).His campaign zeroed in on a perceived gaffe by McAuliffe at one of their debates: “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.”Why this governor’s race is shaping up as a referendum on the Biden presidencyRead moreImportantly, Youngkin was also successful walking a political tightrope in which he accepted Trump’s endorsement but never mentioned him in stump speeches or invited him to campaign with him in person. He cultivated sufficient ambiguity to appeal to moderate Republicans without alienating the Trump base.History was on Youngkin’s side in that the party that loses the White House tends to be energised and usually wins the Virginia’s governor’s race a year later. But McAuliffe himself had bucked that rule when he became governor in 2014 (he was limited to one term).However, no Republican had won statewide office since 2009, and Biden beat Trump in Virginia by 10 percentage points, meaning that a Democratic loss here would reverberate across the nation.Meanwhile, in New Jersey, a similar story was unfolding as the Democratic governor, Phil Murphy, fought to win re-election against his Republican challenger, Jack Ciattarelli. That race was too close to call, with Ciattarelli narrowly ahead. If Murphy holds his office, he would be the first Democrat re-elected as the state’s governor in 44 years, while a defeat would bode ill for national Democrats.At McAuliffe’s election night event at a hotel in Tysons, Virginia, giant TVs that had been showing cable news coverage were switched off long before any result was finalized. Stunned supporters trailed out into the chilly night.Manisha Singh, 48, an analyst, said: “It’s extremely disappointing. I can’t imagine all the lies that were spread to influence voters. I was knocking on doors and people were saying take the porn out of public schools, which is a lie. They were just repeating what they had seen on Fox News.”Singh added: “This might be a huge wake-up call to Democrats. We always play nice when the other party spreads lies. We need to be more aggressive. “Argument quickly broke out among national Democrats over what had gone wrong. The Progressive Change Campaign Committee said in a statement: “Terry McAuliffe sadly can blame his loss on a few corporate-aligned obstructionist Democrats who blocked bold action in Congress, plus his own reliance on backward-looking Trump messaging.It added: “Democrats won’t win simply by branding one opponent after another as a Trump clone, and then hoping to squeak out a razor-thin win. When Democrats fail to run on big ideas or fulfill bold campaign promises, we depress our base while allowing Republicans to use culture wars to hide their real agenda.”McAuliffe, a career politician and establishment Democrat, is likely to point to Biden’s falling popularity and Washington gridlock as factors in his defeat. Youngkin, a former executive at the private-equity firm the Carlyle Group, sold himself as a political outsider challenging the liberal elite.His strategy – a delicate balancing act of stoking culture wars in education and winking at Trump without fully embracing him – is seen as a potential blueprint for Republican candidates in next year’s congressional elections.Trump said in a statement: “All McAuliffe did was talk Trump, Trump, Trump and he lost! What does that tell you, Fake News? I guess people running for office as Democrats won’t be doing that too much longer. I didn’t even have to go rally for Youngkin, because McAuliffe did it for me.”Dan Conston, president of the Congressional Leadership Fund, a super political action committee dedicated to electing Republicans to the House of Representatives, said: “Tonight’s results put every Democrat in Congress on notice.“Virginia was once ground zero for suburban decline but has now become the epicenter of a Republican comeback in 2022. If Republicans can win even in a state so blue that Joe Biden won by 10 points, then far more Democrats are in peril next year than they want to admit.”The battles in Virginia and New Jersey came as voters in states across the US headed to the polls on Tuesday, an off-year election day, to cast their ballots for local governors, mayors and public measures.In New York, the former police officer Eric Adams easily won his race to become the next mayor of New York City. In Boston, Michelle Wu made history when she defeated Annissa Essaibi-George to become the first woman of color and Asian American elected as the city’s mayor. History was also made in Durham, North Carolina, where Elaine O’Neal became the city’s first Black female mayor after campaigning on neighborhood safety, housing and economic relief in the aftermath of the pandemic, while Abdullah Hammoud won the mayoral race in Dearborn, Michigan, making him the city’s first Arab American leader.In Minneapolis, voters rejected an initiative that would have replaced the police department with a new department of public safety, nearly a year and a half after the police killing of George Floyd inspired nationwide protests against police brutality.Maanvi Singh and the Associated Press contributed reportingTopicsVirginiaUS politicsJoe BidenDemocratsDonald TrumpnewsReuse this content More

New YorkEric Adams, former police officer, wins New York mayor’s raceAdams, who defeated Republican and founder of the Guardian Angels Curtis Sliwa, will become city’s second Black mayor Adam Gabbattin New York@adamgabbattTue 2 Nov 2021 22.33 EDTFirst published on Tue 2 Nov 2021 21.17 EDTFormer police officer Eric Adams will be the next mayor of New York City, after the Democrat defeated Curtis Sliwa in Tuesday’s election.Adams was on course to easily beat Sliwa, the founder of the Guardian Angels, with a lead of 66% to 29% after more than half of projected votes were counted.Adams will now take charge of the largest city in the US in January, when he will be faced with overseeing recovery from the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed more than 34,500 New Yorkers.Adams, 61, becomes only the second Black person to be elected New York mayor, after David Dinkins, who led the city from 1990 to 1993. Adams, who defeated several progressive candidates in the Democratic primary, has pledged to cut government inefficiency and made public safety a central part of his campaign.In a speech, Adams urged unity and told his story as a working-class child who grew up to become mayor. “Tonight, New Yorkers have chosen one of their own,” Adams, said in a victory speech. “I am you.”Adams urged unity. “Today, we take off the intramural jersey and we put on one jersey, Team New York,” he told supporters at a celebration at the New York Marriott. “Tonight is not just a victory over adversity, it is a vindication of faith. It is the proof that the forgotten can be the future.”The centrist politician has been a disappointing choice for many progressives who hoped to see radical reforms in the criminal justice system. Adams has promised to strike a balance between fighting crime and ending racial injustice in law enforcement.After winning a contentious primary, Adams was always the favorite to defeat Sliwa, a Republican, in a city where Democrats outnumber Republicans seven to one. He will replace Bill de Blasio, a fellow Democrat who is limited to two terms as mayor, in January.Adams was born in Brownsville, Brooklyn, in 1960, and spoke during the campaign about his impoverished upbringing. He decided to join the New York City police department in an effort to change the force from within, Adams said, after being beaten by officers when he was 15 years old.He joined the police in 1984 and became a captain before leaving in 2006 to run – successfully – for state senate. During his time in the state legislature he was criticized by the New York inspector general for his role in attempting to bring a casino to a racetrack in Queens, New York City. Adams had accepted campaign contributions from a politically connected group bidding for the gambling franchise.In 2013 Adams was elected to Brooklyn borough president, a power-light position that chiefly involves championing the borough, but one which also boosted Adams’s profile as he weighed a run for mayor.Adams trailed Andrew Yang, a 2020 presidential candidate, in the early months of the Democratic primary, but came through New York’s ranked choice voting to edge out Kathryn Garcia, a former New York City sanitation commissioner, in July.His campaign raised eyebrows over the summer when Adams was forced to answer questions about whether he actually lives in the city he was bidding to lead, given he owns a home in New Jersey and was rarely spotted at the address in Brooklyn where he claims to reside. Adams has insisted he lives in New York City.Sliwa, a talk radio host best known for founding the Guardian Angels, a volunteer crime prevention group, in the 1970s, proved a charismatic if ultimately flawed candidate.He had been a regular presence on New York City’s streets, frequently standing on top of a car-pulled float and spreading his message through a microphone and speaker. Sliwa wore his red beret throughout the campaign, including during the mayoral debates, but struggled to gain much attention in a race where Adams had long been the presumptive winner.TopicsNew YorkUS politicsDemocratsBill de BlasionewsReuse this content More

VirginiaVirginia votes as poll expert says ‘white backlash’ could power Republican winGlenn Youngkin and Democrat Terry McAuliffe make final pitch for governor as polls show unexpectedly close race Lauren Gambino in Washington, Martin Pengelly in New York and agenciesTue 2 Nov 2021 17.03 EDTFirst published on Tue 2 Nov 2021 08.01 EDTVirginians on Tuesday headed to the polls to elect a new governor, in a closely contested race between the Democrat Terry McAuliffe and Republican Glenn Youngkin widely seen as a referendum on Joe Biden’s presidency.Why this governor’s race is shaping up as a referendum on the Biden presidencyRead moreThey did so as a leading Virginia polling expert warned that Youngkin may be riding a wave of “white backlash” all the way to the governor’s mansion, having successfully focused on controversy over the place of race in education.In the final hours of the campaign, the candidates offered starkly different closing arguments, making their cases to voters whose odd-year gubernatorial elections have long reflected the national political mood a year into any new administration.Saddled by Biden’s sagging poll numbers and intra-party wrangling that has gridlocked the president’s domestic spending agenda, McAuliffe has attempted to tether his opponent to Donald Trump, a polarizing figure in voter-rich northern suburbs.Youngkin has mostly avoided the subject of Trump while embracing many of his tactics, a strategy many Republican strategists believe could be a model for the midterm elections next year.Polls showed an unexpectedly close race in a state that has trended Democratic since the election of Barack Obama in 2008. A loss in Virginia, which Biden won by nearly 10 points in 2020, would be deeply alarming for a party already bracing for a difficult challenge next year.Hours before polls closed in the commonwealth, Biden expressed confidence that Democrats would win the gubernatorial race in Virginia, and hold the governor’s mansion in New Jersey, where the incumbent, Phil Murphy, is seeking re-election in the Garden state.“We’re gonna win,” Biden said, leaning into the microphone for emphasis, during a press conference in Glasgow, Scotland. He acknowledged that the contest in Virginia was “tight”, saying the outcome would reflect “who shows up, who turns out”.But he waved off attempts to read the race as a barometer of his presidency, insisting that McAuliffe’s fortunes in the state were not tied to his poll numbers or his domestic agenda.“Even if we had passed my agenda, I wouldn’t claim we won because Biden’s agenda passed,” he told reporters.The president predicted that Americans would know the result by the time Air Force One touches down in Washington at roughly 1am local time, though some analysts have warned that it could take longer.Changes to Virginia law mean mail-in and early ballots will be tabulated more quickly than in 2020. As such, Democrats may appear to be ahead early in the night, before the localities more favorable to Republicans start counting election day ballots.On Monday, the last day of dueling events, McAuliffe continued to hammer Youngkin over his connections to Trump, warning darkly that a Republican win in Virginia could help pave the way for a Trump comeback in 2024. But then he went further.“Guess how Glenn Youngkin is finishing his campaign?” the former governor, 64, told a crowd in Fairfax. “He is doing an event with Donald Trump here in Virginia.”That was a lie. Trump was not in Virginia, though he did boost the Republican candidate with a tele-rally. Youngkin did not participate.Youngkin, 54, a former private equity executive and political newcomer, closed his campaign with a final attempt to harness parents’ anger over school closures, mask mandates and what their children are learning, and turn it into an election night upset.Asked why education had become a central factor in Youngkin’s stronger-than-expected showing, Larry Sabato of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia said: “One of the candidates decided it was his ticket to the governor’s mansion and he may well be right.”Speaking to MSNBC, Sabato pointed to the core of Youngkin’s appeal on education: a promise to ban critical race theory in schools. Critical race theory, or CRT, is an academic discipline that examines the ways in which racism operates in US laws and society. It is not taught in Virginia schools, regardless of Youngkin’s promise to ban it.“The operative word is not critical,” Sabato said. “And it’s not theory. It’s race. What a shock, huh? Race. That is what matters. And that’s why it’s sticks.“There’s a lot of, we can call it white backlash, white resistance, whatever you want to call it. It has to do with race. And so we live in a post-factual era … It doesn’t matter that [CRT] isn’t taught in Virginia schools. It’s this generalised attitude that whites are being put upon and we’ve got to do something about it. We being white voters.”Cultural issues have dominated the race, Youngkin also promising to give parents more control over how public schools handle gender and Covid-19, McAuliffe vowing to protect voting rights and abortion access.McAuliffe, a Clinton ally who was governor of Virginia from 2014 to 2018 – the state does not allow consecutive terms – has seen his lead evaporate. Polls have shown Youngkin succeeding by appealing to independents turned off by Trump without alienating his ardent supporters.Youngkin campaigned as an advocate for parents who want more say in their children’s education, capitalising on anger among conservatives who believe schools are overreaching in the name of diversity. Speaking in Richmond on Monday, he promised he would usher in “a Virginia where our government stops telling us what to do all the time”.McAuliffe also handed Youngkin a political gift when he said in a debate in September: “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.”He has attacked Youngkin for hesitating to say whether Biden won the presidency legitimately. Youngkin acknowledged Biden’s victory but also called for an audit of Virginia voting machines, prompting Democrats to accuse him of validating Trump’s baseless election conspiracy theories.Democrats strive to fire Black voter turnout in Virginia governor’s raceRead moreBoth Biden and Barack Obama campaigned for McAuliffe. Trump has not visited the state. In his tele-rally on Monday, the former president told voters Youngkin would protect suburbs and did not repeat his lies about voter fraud.McAuliffe responded on Twitter, saying Trump was “pulling out all the stops to win this race because he knows Glenn will advance his Maga agenda here in Virginia. Tomorrow, Virginia will choose a better way.”In their final word on the campaign, Sabato’s team at UVA moved their prediction from “leans Democratic” to “leans Republican”.“Our sense is that the race has been moving toward Youngkin,” Kyle Kondik and J Miles Coleman wrote, “in large part because of the political environment. McAuliffe’s Trump-centric campaign also just doesn’t seem as potent in a non-federal race with the former president no longer in the White House.”TopicsVirginiaUS politicsDemocratsRepublicansRacenewsReuse this content More

MinnesotaMinneapolis votes on whether to replace police department Future of policing is on the ballot in the city where Floyd’s death in May 2020 launched a nationwide reckoning on racial justice Associated Press in MinneapolisTue 2 Nov 2021 08.51 EDTVoters in Minneapolis will decide on Tuesday whether to replace their police department with a new Department of Public Safety, more than a year after the murder of George Floyd, a Black man, by a white police officer launched a national movement to defund or abolish police. ‘I had a big gasp’: George Floyd jurors speak on the trial, the video and the verdictRead moreThe Democratic mayor, Jacob Frey, is also in a tough fight for a second term, facing opponents who attacked him in the wake of Floyd’s death.Frey opposed the policing amendment. Two of his leading challengers in a field of 17, Sheila Nezhad and Kate Knuth, strongly supported the proposal. Voters will also decide whether to replace an unusual “weak mayor, strong council” system with a more conventional distribution of executive and legislative powers.While results on the ballot questions were expected on Tuesday night, the mayoral race uses ranked-choice voting. If no candidate reaches 50% in the first round, the winner will be determined after a tally of second- and potentially third-choice votes. The future of policing in the city where Floyd’s death in May 2020 launched a nationwide reckoning on racial justice overshadowed everything else on the ballot. The debate brought national attention as well as out-of-state money seeking to influence a contest that could shape changes in policing elsewhere. The proposed amendment to the city charter would remove language that mandates Minneapolis have a police department with a minimum number of officers based on population. It would be replaced by a new Department of Public Safety that would take a “comprehensive public health approach to the delivery of functions” that “could include” police officers “if necessary, to fulfill its responsibilities for public safety”. Supporters of the change argued that an overhaul is necessary to stop police violence, to re-imagine what public safety can be and to devote more funding to approaches that don’t rely on sending armed officers to deal with people in crisis. But opponents said the ballot proposal contained no plan for how the department would operate and expressed fear it might make communities affected by gun violence more vulnerable. The details, and who would lead the new agency, would be determined by the mayor and the council. Two prominent progressives – Ilhan Omar, who represents the Minneapolis area, and state attorney general Keith Ellison – supported the policing amendment. But some leading mainstream liberals, including Governor Tim Walz and Senators Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith, opposed it, fearing backlash could lead to Democratic losses across the US in 2022. Opponents included several Black leaders, some top voices in the police accountability movement. Minister JaNae Bates, a spokeswoman for the pro-amendment campaign, told reporters that even if the proposal fails, it has changed the conversation. “No matter what happens,” Bates said, “the city is going to have to move forward and really wrestle with what we cannot un-know: that the Minneapolis police department has been able to operate with impunity and has done quite a bit of harm and the city has to take some serious steps to rectify that.”TopicsMinnesotaGeorge FloydUS politicsUS policingRacenewsReuse this content More

Cop26Biden to unveil pledge to slash global methane emissions by 30% US-led alliance includes 90 countries but China, India and Russia have not joined the methane pact

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Patrick Wintour Diplomatic editorTue 2 Nov 2021 02.26 EDTLast modified on Tue 2 Nov 2021 04.51 EDTUS president Joe Biden will try to underscore his green credentials by unveiling an action plan to control methane, regarded by the administration as the single most potent way to combat the climate crisis in the short term.Leading an alliance of 90 countries, including for the first time Brazil, he will on Tuesday set out new regulatory measures to limit global methane emissions by 30% from 2020 levels by the end of the decade.The alliance includes two-thirds of the global economy and half of the top 30 major methane emitter countries. China, India and Russia have not joined the pact known as the Global Methane Pledge.Cop26: Biden urges action on climate change and vows US will ‘lead by example’Read moreThe pledge was first announced in September but Biden’s officials have been working hard to increase the number of signatories and the momentum behind the pledge. The detailed US proposals may prove to be one of the lasting successes of Cop26 in Glasgow where Biden will announce his action plan.Many of the regulatory measures do not require Congressional approval, and so give Biden some short-term effective measures to which he can point.Biden will focus on new plans to limit methane emissions by the oil and gas industry in the US, reckoned to be responsible for 30% of the methane emissions in the US.A new Environment Protection Agency rule that regulates leak detection and repair in the oil industry repealed by Donald Trump will be restored and for the first time applied to new operations in gas, including regulation of natural gas produced as a by-product of oil production that is vented or flared.The Biden team hopes that 75% of all methane emissions will be covered.Cut methane emissions to rapidly fight climate disasters, UN report saysRead moreThe other major sources of methane in the US are municipal landfills, thousands of abandoned oil wells and coal mines, and finally agriculture.New rules, due to be phased in, will require companies to oversee and inspect 3m miles (4.8m km) of pipelines, including 300,000 miles (480,000km) of transmission lines and 2.3m miles (3.7m km) of lines inside cities. In Boston alone it is estimated that 49,000 tonnes of methane leak each year.The administration says it is working in concert with the EU and is using a mix of incentives, new disclosure rules and regulation. It stressed that the plan will create thousands of unionised jobs.02:33TopicsCop26Climate crisisJoe BidenUS politicsnewsReuse this content More