CBS News
Wife of American detained for 2 years by Taliban pleads for help — and attention — from White House
When news of the historic, multi-country prisoner swap resulting in the release of three Americans who had been detained in Russia broke last week, Anna Corbett absorbed it slowly, fighting back tears.
“People kept texting me, emailing me about it, saying, ‘Oh, we wish it were Ryan,'” she said. “It was just so painful. I just had to distance myself, and I couldn’t read all the details of how all the negotiations were done.”
“I’m really happy for them, but it’s bittersweet,” she told CBS News. “I see how much focus it took for that to come together and to bring Americans home. It just takes effort. And I’m not seeing that effort.”
Courtesy Corbett family
Almost exactly a week later, following a set of meetings with national security council officials, Corbett, 43, found herself standing outside the West Wing of the White House, enlisting her teenage daughter, Ketsia, in taping a video on her phone. Anna felt she had run out of options, and wanted to say publicly that her entreaties for a meeting at higher levels — specifically with President Biden and national security adviser Jake Sullivan — had again been ignored.
“I am standing just yards away from the West Wing of the White House, where the president is sitting and where national security adviser Jake Sullivan is also sitting,” Anna says in the video, her voice shaking slightly. “When I met with [Sullivan] in January, he said that he would meet with me again by the State of the Union if Ryan wasn’t home.”
Courtesy of the Corbett family
“I have written emails, I have asked to meet with him — they’ve all been ignored. He broke his promise to me,” Anna continued. “Please meet with me and do everything you can to bring Ryan home as soon as possible.”
That evening, she got one of the most encouraging calls she has gotten in months.
Two years of detention
August 10 will mark two years since Anna’s husband, 41-year-old Ryan Corbett, was arrested, along with three associates – a German citizen and two Afghans – during a business trip to northern Afghanistan.
Before Ryan’s abduction, the family had lived in Kabul for over a decade, from 2010 to 2021, where Anna homeschooled their three children, including their son Caleb, who was born in Afghanistan in 2010. Ryan, who is fluent in Pashto, worked for local NGOs before starting a microloan and consulting business in the Afghan capital.
The family fled Kabul amid the U.S.’ chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021. A year later, in August 2022, Ryan made the fraught decision to return to the country on a business visa to support the staff employed through his business, Bloom Afghanistan, which at the time was still operational.
The State Department’s travel advisory for Afghanistan was at its highest level — Level 4: Do not Travel — amid what the Department warned was terrorist activity and the risk of arbitrary detention.
The four men’s arrest came days after a U.S. drone strike killed Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, on July 31. The three associates who traveled with Ryan have since been released, but he continues to be held in a facility run by the Taliban’s General Directorate of Intelligence.
He has been accused but never formally charged by the Taliban of anti-state activities — a common accusation against Westerners and one his family denies. The State Department deemed him “wrongfully detained” in September of 2023.
Courtesy of the Corbett family
Courtesy of the Corbett family
According to his family, who has spoken by phone with Ryan and with other Western detainees who met Ryan and have since been released, he has been kept in a windowless basement cell, where the Taliban have threatened to beat him and have forced him to listen to the torture of other prisoners. He is extremely malnourished and has been suffering from fainting episodes and numbness in his extremities.
“He is definitely weakening and deteriorating,” Anna said in a recent virtual interview with CBS News. She worries incessantly that Ryan could die at any moment, either from maltreatment or neglect.
She also worries that for two years, the White House has not been focused at the necessary levels on finding a way to get her husband home.
“It should not be the case that only detainees with high profiles get this White House’s full attention,” she said in a statement marking two years this week since Ryan’s detention began.
Anna has visited Washington, D.C., 13 times in the past 24 months, including to attend the State of the Union address in March at the invitation of Republican congresswoman Claudia Tenney of New York. Her children attended as guests of House Speaker Mike Johnson.
She has met multiple times with several influential members of Congress, including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell — both of whom have personally appealed to the White House to take meetings with Anna — as well as House Foreign Affairs Chairman Michael McCaul, and others.
She has taken part in multiple rounds of public and private congressional testimony. At her urging, both the House and the Senate have passed resolutions calling for Ryan’s immediate release. Attorneys for the family have also filed urgent petitions with the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture and the U.N. Working Group for Arbitrary Detention, and in June, a UN expert said Ryan risked dying in detention if he does not receive adequate medical care.
Though she has met consistently with members of the national security council and officials at the State Department, including UN Ambassador Linda Thomas Greenfield and Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs (SPEHA) Roger Carstens, and has spoken once with Secretary of State Antony Blinken, what she most wants now and believes could make the most difference in Ryan’s case is getting President Biden and his top advisers to pay attention.
In the past six months, she said she has sent dozens of requests through multiple channels to meet with Sullivan and Mr. Biden, but that her requests had, until this week, been ignored.
“I’m not rich and famous. I don’t have as many resources as others,” Anna said. “I just don’t know what else can be done.”
Taliban demands
In addition to Ryan, the State Department has said publicly the Taliban are holding at least two other Americans: George Glezmann, a 65-year-old Atlanta native detained while on a tourist visit in December of 2022, and Mahmood Habibi, a dual American-Afghan national and civil aviation expert who was detained, along with dozens of other Afghans, on the same day as Ryan Corbett, in another part of Afghanistan.
In recent months, Ryan and George have been held in the same cell in the GDI-run facility, according to people familiar with their circumstances. CBS News could not confirm where Habibi is being held, and Taliban officials have offered conflicting messages over time as to whether Habibi is considered to be among the American prisoners it is holding.
In early July, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told CBS News the group had discussed U.S. detainees with American officials on the margins of a global security conference in Doha, Qatar, but did not specify any names or numbers of prisoners who may be involved in a potential exchange.
“There was a focus on the exchange of detainees, we [are] emphasizing the importance of Afghan prisoners held by the U.S. and suggesting a swap for American citizens detained by the Taliban,” Mujahid said. “If the U.S. values its citizens, the Taliban equally value their own people.”
Three separate senior Taliban officials told CBS News in July the group had been clear in recent meetings with U.S. officials about its desire for a deal that would potentially involve releasing three American prisoners in exchange for three Afghan prisoners held by the U.S.: Mohammed Rahim al-Afghani, the last Afghan national held in Guantanamo Bay, as well as two other Afghan nationals currently held in U.S. prisons on drug-related charges.
Rahim, who was transferred to Guantanamo Bay from CIA custody in 2008, and is believed by the U.S. government to have been a close associate of Osama bin Laden, has not been charged.
The Taliban sources did not name the two other Afghans, nor did any U.S. officials who spoke with CBS News.
One of the senior Taliban officials, who is with the GDI and claimed to handle the cases of foreign national prisoners, said Habibi had been arrested and was being held in a “prisoner guest house” in Kabul. That official, speaking with CBS News earlier this week, described Habibi’s case as “complicated.”
When the other senior Taliban officials were contacted by CBS News again in August, however, two changed their previous statements, saying the group only held two American prisoners, and one Taliban official connected with the GDI denied the group held Habibi at all.
“The deal should not be complicated, as we have had similar successful exchanges in the recent past,” one of the senior Taliban officials said. “The Taliban regime has no complications. It is the USA that has complications and cannot make a solid commitment.”
Rahim’s “detention is a major barrier to progress in our negotiations,” another one of the senior Taliban officials who said he had knowledge of the talks told CBS News.
Rahim’s attorney, James Connell, told CBS News while on a visit to Guantanamo Bay on Friday that he has not discussed a potential prisoner swap with any U.S. or Taliban official.
“No one has contacted me about any proposed resolution,” Connell said.
Connell added that Rahim has not been cleared by Guantanamo’s Periodic Review Board, which determines “whether continued detention of particular individuals held at Guantanamo remains necessary to protect against a continuing significant threat to the security of the United States,” according to its website.
Multiple American officials familiar with the talks declined to comment on any discussions with the Taliban or confirm what the Taliban officials who spoke with CBS News claimed they had proposed.
One U.S. official said the government’s focus was on bringing the three Americans home. A spokesman for SPEHA declined to comment.
A spokesperson for the national security council said, “The U.S. government has engaged with Taliban representatives in pursuit of the immediate and unconditional release of Americans wrongfully detained in Afghanistan on humanitarian grounds.”
“The Biden administration remains fully committed to doing everything we can to bring home Americans who are wrongfully detained abroad, including Ryan Corbett,” the spokesperson said.
But for her part, Anna says it remains unclear to her what the U.S. government may be willing to consider.
“It’s been two years, and there’s never been a solution put on the table that comes close to allowing both sides to reach a deal,” she said.
U.S. efforts today
During a press briefing Thursday, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller acknowledged the approaching two-year mark of Corbett’s and Habibi’s detainment and said bringing them and Glezmann home continues to be a “top priority.”
“We are deeply concerned about the well-being of Americans unjustly detained in Afghanistan — Mahmood, Ryan, and George Glezmann — and raise their detentions in every engagement we have with the Taliban,” Miller said, though he did not immediately specify how many engagements there had been.
“[Special Representative for Afghanistan] Tom West pressed for the immediate and unconditional release of U.S. citizens unjustly detained in Afghanistan directly with the Taliban in July at Doha 3,” he later added, referring to the third U.N.-facilitated international gathering hosted by Qatar on a global approach to Taliban rule. “We continue to press for their release at every opportunity. Due to the sensitivity of these discussions, we do not make every engagement public.”
In his comments Wednesday, Miller noted that both Corbett and Glezmann had been officially determined to be “wrongfully detained,” a legal status conferred by the State Department on Americans held abroad according to criteria established by the Levinson Act. While “wrongfully detained” status is not a requirement for release, it unlocks U.S. government resources for family members and can help elevate a detainee’s profile.
Habibi is considered unjustly detained, Miller said, adding some of the Levinson Act criteria had not been applied either because they did not fit or because the U.S. still had insufficient information about his case.
Since the 2021 withdrawal of U.S. military forces from Afghanistan, the American government has had no formal diplomatic ties with the Taliban and instead has adopted a position the State Department describes as “pragmatic engagement.” The Department established an office known as the “Afghanistan Affairs Unit” in Doha, Qatar to manage diplomatic and consular issues in Afghanistan. Qatar has served as the U.S. protecting power in Afghanistan since 2021.
Intervention by the Qataris in recent months has made a difference in Ryan’s treatment, Anna said. After a team from Qatar met with the Taliban last spring, Ryan’s captors increased the amount of exposure to sunlight he receives — now 30 minutes a week, up from 30 minutes a month.
After Anna traveled to Doha in May to meet with Qatari officials, and they in turn engaged with the Taliban, she said Ryan has been able to call home roughly every two weeks, while previously months could pass without a call.
While the increased tempo of phone calls has offered important reassurance to Ryan and his family, Anna said the calls have also fueled concerns about his deteriorating health.
She and her children “prepare for each call to see what news we’ll share with him, but I also don’t push them to have to talk if they don’t feel up for it,” she said. “I know it means a lot for him to hear their voices and hear news from them.”
But, she added, “When he’s not been doing well emotionally, he doesn’t even ask about us or the kids.”
“We know then he’s really not well,” she said, her voice catching.
During her meetings in Washington this week, Anna said she pressed administration officials for specifics about a plan to get Ryan home, but had still come away with little clarity.
“This up and down, back and forth, trying to push and just feeling like I’m just running in circles and not seeing progress – it’s so frustrating,” she said. “If I were at a two-year mark and I really felt like, ‘Oh my goodness, we’re really probably really close to this, I think I would feel better, but I don’t.”
“And with the election season in full swing, I just don’t know what this means, and Ryan’s getting worse,” she said.
A representative for the Corbett family who has helped facilitate Anna’s meetings in Washington said there was hope President Biden’s announcement last month that he would not seek reelection might increase the chances he would be able to take a personal interest in Ryan’s case during his final five months in office.
“Russia was hard. This is easy, and could have been resolved a long time ago if it had been put before the president,” the representative said. “The president has a window to get this done. The support on the Hill is there. We’re trying to get his attention before it’s too late.”
House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul of Texas, whose office has met frequently with Corbett’s family and held public hearings with Anna, also called for more urgent engagement from the White House in particular.
“Despite repeated requests, President Biden has still not met with Ryan’s wife Anna or their family,” McCaul said. “Ryan’s mental and physical health is deteriorating daily, yet the Biden-Harris administration still has no plan to bring him home. As chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, I will not rest until Ryan is returned home to his family.”
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, where Ryan’s parents and family reside, also said in a statement,”For nearly 730 days, Ryan Corbett has languished inside a basement cell, denied his most basic human rights. As his health continues to deteriorate and his family suffers without their father, Ryan’s safe return is long overdue.”
“I call upon the Taliban to release all Americans wrongfully detained,” McConnell said.
Aides to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, whose office has also met multiple times with Anna, did not respond to several requests for comment.
On Wednesday, after three days of meetings across offices in Washington – and roughly four hours after her video outside the West Wing was posted – Anna said she received two calls from the White House, and two emails the following day.
“I have a meeting on the calendar,” she said, giving a rare, broad smile. She is now scheduled to meet Jake Sullivan on August 19.
“I’m expecting to get answers,” she said.
and
contributed to this report.
When Michael Adams was researching health insurance options last year, he had one very specific requirement: coverage for prosthetic limbs.
Adams, 51, lost his right leg to cancer 40 years ago, and he has worn out more legs than he can count. He picked a gold plan on the Colorado health insurance marketplace that covered prosthetics, including microprocessor-controlled knees like the one he has used for many years. That function adds stability and helps prevent falls.
But when his leg needed replacing in January after about five years of everyday use, his new marketplace health plan wouldn’t authorize it. The roughly $50,000 leg with the electronically controlled knee wasn’t medically necessary, the insurer said, even though Colorado law leaves that determination up to the patient’s doctor, and his has prescribed a version of that leg for many years, starting when he had employer-sponsored coverage.
“The electronic prosthetic knee is life-changing,” said Adams, who lives in Lafayette, Colorado, with his wife and two kids. Without it, “it would be like going back to having a wooden leg like I did when I was a kid.” The microprocessor in the knee responds to different surfaces and inclines, stiffening up if it detects movement that indicates its user is falling.
Alana Adams
People who need surgery to replace a joint typically don’t encounter similar coverage roadblocks. In 2021, 1.5 million knee or hip joint replacements were performed in United States hospitals and hospital-owned ambulatory facilities, according to the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, or AHRQ. The median price for a total hip or knee replacement without complications at top orthopedic hospitals was just over $68,000 in 2020, according to one analysis, though health plans often negotiate lower rates.
To people in the amputee community, the coverage disparity amounts to discrimination.
“Insurance covers a knee replacement if it’s covered with skin, but if it’s covered with plastic, it’s not going to cover it,” said Jeffrey Cain, a family physician and former chair of the board of the Amputee Coalition, an advocacy group. Cain wears two prosthetic legs, having lost his after an airplane accident nearly 30 years ago.
AHIP, a trade group for health plans, said health plans generally provide coverage when the prosthetic is determined to be medically necessary, such as to replace a body part or function for walking and day-to-day activity. In practice, though, prosthetic coverage by private health plans varies tremendously, said Ashlie White, chief strategy and programs officer at the Amputee Coalition. Even though coverage for basic prostheses may be included in a plan, “often insurance companies will put caps on the devices and restrictions on the types of devices approved,” White said.
That means that a patient’s costs can also fluctuate significantly, depending on that person’s coverage specifics, the plan’s restrictions and even geographic cost differences.
An estimated 2.3 million people are living with limb loss in the U.S., according to an analysis by Avalere, a health care consulting company. That number is expected to as much as double in coming years as people age and a growing number lose limbs to diabetes, trauma and other medical problems.
Fewer than half of people with limb loss have been prescribed a prosthesis, according to a report by the AHRQ. Plans may deny coverage for prosthetic limbs by claiming they aren’t medically necessary or are experimental devices, even though microprocessor-controlled knees like Adams’ have been in use for decades.
Cain was instrumental in getting passed a 2000 Colorado law that requires insurers to cover prosthetic arms and legs at parity with Medicare, which requires coverage with a 20% coinsurance payment. Since that measure was enacted, about half of states have passed “insurance fairness” laws that require prosthetic coverage on par with other covered medical services in a plan or laws that require coverage of prostheses that enable people to do sports. But these laws apply only to plans regulated by the state. Over half of people with private coverage are in plans not governed by state law.
The Medicare program’s 80% coverage of prosthetic limbs mirrors its coverage for other services. Still, an October report by the Government Accountability Office found that only 30% of beneficiaries who lost a limb in 2016 received a prosthesis in the following three years.
Cost is a factor for many people.
“No matter your coverage, most people have to pay something on that device,” White said. As a result, “many people will be on a payment plan for their device,” she said. Some may take out loans.
The federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has proposed a rule that would prohibit lenders from repossessing medical devices such as wheelchairs and prosthetic limbs if people can’t repay their loans.
“It is a replacement limb,” said White, whose organization has heard of several cases in which lenders have repossessed wheelchairs or prostheses. Repossession is “literally a punishment to the individual.”
Adams ultimately owed a coinsurance payment of about $4,000 for his new leg, which reflected his portion of the insurer’s negotiated rate for the knee and foot portion of the leg but did not include the costly part that fits around his stump, which didn’t need replacing. The insurer approved the prosthetic leg on appeal, claiming it had made an administrative error, Adams said.
“We’re fortunate that we’re able to afford that 20%,” said Adams, who is a self-employed leadership consultant.
Again, out-of-pocket costs – even if the patient has health insurance and a doctor’s prescription – can be cost-prohibitive because of the plan’s co-insurance requirements as well as coverage caps or other limitations.
Leah Kaplan doesn’t have that financial flexibility. Born without a left hand, she did not have a prosthetic limb until a few years ago.
Growing up, “I didn’t want more reasons to be stared at,” said Kaplan, 32, of her decision not to use a prosthesis. A few years ago, the cycling enthusiast got a prosthetic hand specially designed for use with her bike. That device was covered under the health plan she has through her county government job in Spokane, Washington, helping developmentally disabled people transition from school to work.
But when she tried to get approval for a prosthetic hand to use for everyday activities, her health plan turned her down. The myoelectric hand she requested would respond to electrical impulses in her arm that would move the hand to perform certain actions. Without insurance coverage, the hand would cost her just over $46,000, which she said she can’t afford.
Working with her doctor, she has appealed the decision to her insurer and been denied three times. Kaplan said she’s still not sure exactly what the rationale is, except that the insurer has questioned the medical necessity of the prosthetic hand. The next step is to file an appeal with an independent review organization certified by the state insurance commissioner’s office.
A prosthetic hand is not a luxury device, Kaplan said. The prosthetic clinic has ordered the hand and made the customized socket that will fit around the end of her arm. But until insurance coverage is sorted out, she can’t use it.
At this point, she feels defeated. “I’ve been waiting for this for so long,” Kaplan said.
KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF — the independent source for health policy research, polling and journalism.
Kevin Dietsch / Getty Images
Martin O’Malley has the kind of experience that would typically benefit a Democrat who wants to guide the party’s future after devastating losses in the last election.
He’s a former governor, former mayor and a 2016 presidential candidate who until recently was serving in President Joe Biden’s administration. Yet O’Malley is facing a difficult path in the race to try and become the next chairman of the Democratic National Committee as the party reckons with the reality that key pockets of voters turned against it.
Vital to O’Malley’s attempt is a campaign platform, first reported by CBS News, that calls for reconnecting the Democratic Party “to the kitchen table of every American family.”
“We suffered a very bad loss,” O’Malley said in an interview, urging Democrats “to learn from it in order to win the next battles ahead.”
His vision is centered on a 57-state and territory strategy along with plans to give campaigns “world-class AI tools for voter outreach, research, communications, and financial management, eliminating barriers to effective campaigning.” O’Malley’s pitch is also focused on “re-investing in direct voter registration,” as part of his pledge for the party to make “voter protection and registration the pillars of the change we need to win.”
Democrats weathered a chaotic election cycle in 2024, punctuated by the push within the party to convince President Biden to end his reelection run after a dismal debate performance in June. While Mr. Biden eventually ended his bid in July and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to take his place at the top of the ticket, the 107-day sprint that followed resulted in Democrats losing the White House and Senate while failing, albeit narrowly, to win control of the House.
Now the party is essentially leaderless and preparing for an emboldened Donald Trump to return to Washington, where he’ll be able to benefit from Republicans’ unified control of Congress and the White House. Those dynamics will be well in play at the time of the election for DNC chair on Feb. 1 given the unease among Democrats that has been abundantly clear in the weeks following the presidential election.
“I want to see someone who doesn’t come from the Washington circuit, who actually has been out there in the tissue of the country,” Ohio Rep. Marcy Kaptur, a battleground district Democrat, said of the DNC chair race.
Failure can mean opportunity. The party’s struggles means O’Malley, as well as other ambitious Democrats, have a chance to become the next chair and carry wide ranging influence during a critical time for the party as it looks to regain ground in the 2026 midterms and the 2028 presidential election. For all his apparent vulnerabilities, Trump was far more successful in this election than ever before, winning all seven presidential battlegrounds. Whether what happened in 2024 will become a tangible turning point for Democrats is likely to loom over the chair race in the coming weeks.
“That’s the big shift that’s happened with this election going the wrong way on us,” O’Malley said. “We’re now in a mode of needing a changemaker, not a caretaker.”
Among those running for chair, Ken Martin, the leader of Minnesota’s arm of the Democratic Party and a DNC vice chair, as well as Wisconsin Democratic Party Chair Ben Wikler, are seen as frontrunners. Martin has deep relationships within the DNC and can boast a statewide winning streak for candidates in Minnesota, while Wikler carries the political gravitas of helping lead the party in one of the nation’s seven presidential battlegrounds.
Earlier this month, Martin announced a framework which includes his drive for a “Democratic infrastructure in all 3,244 counties,” across the country, as well as taking on the branding problem evident from the 2024 election results.
“The majority of Americans now believe the Republican Party best represents the interests of the working class and the poor, and the Democratic Party is the party of the wealthy and the elites,” Martin said in his framework. “It’s a damning indictment on our party brand. We must be willing to dig deep and recenter the Democratic agenda to unite families across race, age, background, and class.”
During a brief pitch to party leaders at a meeting in Washington D.C. last week where Martin and O’Malley also spoke, Wikler told his fellow Democrats “we need to build the battle plan to change how we communicate, so we show what we mean when we say we fight for working folks.”
This isn’t the first time O’Malley has been linked to leading the party. Days after the 2016 election, he posted on social media that despite encouragement, he would not run for chair. Eight years later, he’s navigating a short window to make his case as he emphasizes his lengthy career in politics.
O’Malley served as mayor of Baltimore from 1999 to 2007 and went on to win two terms as governor of Maryland, which included a stint leading the Democratic Governors Association. His political power has faded since then however, illustrated most notably by the struggles he faced during his campaign for president in the 2016 Democratic primary. Before announcing his run for chair, O’Malley spent nearly a year working in the federal government as commissioner of Social Security.
That experience is intertwined in O’Malley’s platform, which also calls for creating “a feedback loop for our local and state elected officials to ensure that they can help inform our messaging and tactics.”
“We all know we need to restore our credibility,” O’Malley said. “We need to learn from our failings, as well as our candidates who succeeded. But only one of us [in the race for DNC chair] has actually proven an ability to effectuate a rapid turnaround like we need to do right now in order to win the next election.”
contributed to this report.
In the final days of his administration, President Biden has set a new climate goal for slashing U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. However, it comes as his successor, President-elect Donald Trump, has signaled he is not interested in global climate negotiations.
The U.S. formally submitted its new goal Thursday to the United Nations. It calls for a 61% to 66% reduction in net greenhouse gas emissions by 2035 compared to 2005 levels, the White House said, with an overarching goal of achieving net zero emissions by no later than 2050.
The new goal is part of the Paris Agreement, under which member nations must update their emission cut targets — known as Nationally Determined Contributions, or NDCs — every five years.
The Paris accord requires countries to set voluntary targets for reducing greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide. The only binding requirement is that nations accurately report on their efforts. First signed in 2016 by nearly 200 nations, it seeks to limit global warming to no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
The new climate commitment “marks an ambitious capstone to President Biden’s climate legacy,” the White House said in a news release, adding that it will help grow a new clean energy economy focused on investment, innovation, and jobs.
“The United States’ new climate commitment offers a clear path forward for states, cities, businesses, and other leaders dedicated to ramping up action over the next four years,” said Debbie Weyl, U.S. acting director for the nonprofit environmental group the World Resource Institute, in a statement. “Even though the Trump administration may not lift a finger to deliver on this plan, it sets a north star for what the U.S. should be aiming for and could help guide the federal government’s priorities once Trump leaves office in 2029,” Weyl said.
In 2017, then-President Trump announced he was withdrawing the U.S. from the Paris Agreement, a process which took until nearly the end of his first term to complete. However, Mr. Biden fulfilled a campaign vow by rejoining the Paris Agreement on the first day of his own administration in early 2021.
Trump has long championed the fossil fuel industry, questioned the science of climate change and weakened other environmental protections.
This year, his campaign said Trump would pull the U.S. from the Paris Agreement a second time.
Last month in Azerbaijan at the annual United Nations climate summit known as COP29, participants adopted a $300 billion annual deal that will go towards helping developing countries wean themselves off coal, oil and gas, and help them adapt to future warming and pay for the damage caused by climate change’s extreme weather.
Mary Cunningham and
contributed to this report.
Health insurers limit coverage of prosthetic limbs, questioning their medical necessity
DNC chair candidate Martin O’Malley says Democrats need to learn from “very bad loss”
Biden sets new climate goal for slashing U.S. greenhouse gas emissions
Health insurers limit coverage of prosthetic limbs, questioning their medical necessity
DNC chair candidate Martin O’Malley says Democrats need to learn from “very bad loss”