Biden Urged to Demand ‘Climate Emergency’ as Smoke Chokes Washington

Progressive lawmakers and activists are again imploring President Joe Biden to declare a climate emergency, citing the thick blanket of smoke from Canadian wildfires now shrouding the US Capitol and swaths of the Eastern seaboard.

“As much of the Northeast and our nation’s capital experience the suffocating conditions that have become a regular occurrence in the West, we are faced with yet another stark reminder that the climate crisis is here,” said Representative Earl Blumenauer, an Oregon Democrat. “We ought to treat it like the emergency it is.” Those sentiments were echoed by Representative Ro Khanna, a California Democrat, who urged Biden on Twitter to “declare a climate emergency.”