President Joe Biden used a visit to crime-ridden Seattle on Friday, Earth Day, to push his agenda on climate change despite most voters indicating they care far more about public safety these days than the environment.
“I think that we’re in one of those moments in world history and in American history where we’ve reached the point that the crisis on the environment has become so obvious, with the notable exception of the former president, that we really have an opportunity to do things we couldn’t have done two, five, 10 years ago,” Biden said Friday in Seattle during his Earth Day speech.
The White House touted Biden’s signing this week of an executive order aimed at preserving old-growth forests and certain types of trees as a step toward doing more to fulfill Biden’s climate promises.
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Polls show voters are increasingly worried about public safety as violence continues to rise in cities across the country.
“Voters are significantly more worried about inflation and violent crime than they are about COVID-19 or climate change,” polling firm Rasmussen said of a January survey on voter concerns.
That poll found 88% of voters expressed some level of concern about violent crime, with 61% of voters saying they were “very concerned” about the problem.
Crime has risen as a top worry even among Democratic strongholds.
In California, a University of California, Berkeley, poll this month found that more Californians rated crime as a more pressing concern than a number of other issues — including gas prices.
Choosing Seattle for Biden’s Earth Day speech this week drew a particularly sharp contrast on where the president’s priorities lie given how significantly the city has struggled with crime.
Seattle’s crime rate hit a 14-year high in 2021, exceeding the heights reached during the tumultuous first year of the pandemic.
Aggravated assaults climbed by 24% between 2020 and 2021, according to the Seattle Police Department, and arson climbed by 31%.
The city’s police department said robberies and car thefts were “significantly” higher last year when comparing a weighted average of the previous five years.
The spike in crime in Seattle is not unique, however. Cities across the United States have experienced increases in violent crime since the unrest of summer 2020, when racial protests swept the country and led to an outbreak of crime nationwide.
Twelve major U.S. cities experienced record-high levels of crime in 2021 — many of them after veering left on their prosecutorial or law enforcement policies.
Biden has proposed investing billions more taxpayer dollars into climate-related initiatives as opposed to police funding.
For example, Democrats set aside $50 million of the American Rescue Plan, a COVID-19 stimulus bill, for “environmental justice initiatives.”
A failed White House legislative priority — the Build Back Better Act, a sprawling climate and social spending bill — included more than $500 billion for climate-related programs.
And Biden’s fiscal year 2023 proposal, considered a road map of the president’s top priorities, would increase what the government already spends on climate and energy programs by $45 billion.
In contrast, Biden’s budget proposal would include a mere $1.7 billion boost to federal law enforcement spending.
In addition to the Friday appearance, Biden has given multiple speeches focusing on climate change throughout his presidency, making the issue a center of his domestic and foreign policy agenda despite relatively low general interest.
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In November, Biden traveled internationally to promote the administration’s climate vision, speaking to world leaders at the U.N. Climate Change Conference.
Biden has also spoken out about crime but has often chosen a relatively narrow framing for an issue that has far broader implications for many people.
He has focused much of his rhetoric about crime on the liberal priority of gun control, blaming gun laws for a proliferation of violence that experts say has many different causes.
Bracing for what is likely to be a brutal midterm election for their party, many Democrats have pivoted away from progressive ideas such as limiting energy production and overhauling policing.
But the Biden administration has continued to focus its energy on matters, such as fighting to preserve the federal mask mandate on airplanes and pushing a green agenda, that have little to do with what voters say will dictate how they cast their ballot in November.
