But Mr. Biden also promised “no more drilling on federal lands, period. Period, period, period.”
Despite that pledge, he has agreed to green-light a drilling project known as Willow on pristine federal land in Alaska and mandated the sale of offshore drilling leases as part of a deal to pass the climate bill. During negotiations with Republicans on the debt ceiling last month, Mr. Biden agreed to expedite the $6.6 billion Mountain Valley Pipeline, intended to carry natural gas about 300 miles from the Marcellus shale fields in West Virginia through Virginia to the North Carolina line. Environmental activists have been fighting that project for nearly a decade.
For many young climate activists, it was the final straw.
“You cannot honor the president and call him a climate champion when he is actively approving new fossil fuel projects,” said Michael Greenberg, president of Climate Defiance, a nonprofit group that has been disrupting events featuring Biden administration officials and other Democrats.
Climate Defiance members intended to protest outside the League of Conservation Voters dinner on Wednesday night, Mr. Greenberg said.
At a demonstration against the Mountain Valley Pipeline in front of the White House last week, Alice Hu, 25, said Mr. Biden’s climate legacy has been undercut by his approval of oil and gas development. As smoke from hundreds of Canadian wildfires hung in the air, Ms. Hu said the president needed to take on the fossil fuel industry in order to get her vote.
“If he wants to count on progressive votes, if he wants to count on youth votes, he needs to stop being a climate villain,” she said.
Cristina Tzintzun Ramirez, president of NextGen America, which is focused on young voters’ participation, said her group hoped to counter that dissent by endorsing Mr. Biden now. She noted that since Mr. Biden was elected in 2020, 17 million people have reached voting age.
“We know we need to spend the time and money to tell young people about why their vote still matters, and that’s why we’re doing this endorsement so early.,” she said.
