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President Joe Biden has COVID-19, but that didn’t stop him from announcing billions in climate change spending, executive actions and talking about one energy project in Wyoming.
Biden has tested positive for COVID-19, his press secretary announced Thursday.
“He is fully vaccinated and twice boosted and experiencing very mild symptoms,” Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement.
She said the president has been in contact with members of the White House staff by phone and would participate in his planned meetings at the White House via phone and Zoom. He will continue to be isolated until he gets a negative test upon which he will return to in-person work.
Members of Congress, the media and anyone who interacted with the president yesterday are being informed by the White House Medical Unit.
The president traveled to Somerset, Massachusetts yesterday where he said he would “act with urgency and resolve when our nation faces clear and present danger. And that’s what climate change is about. It is literally, not figuratively, a clear and present danger.”
He announced $2.3 billion for FEMA to help protect communities from extreme heat and other disasters, $385 million to pay for air conditioners in homes and “community cooling”, wind projects and others.
The president highlighted energy projects throughout the country.
“Folks, elsewhere in the country…we are propelling retrofits and ensuring that even where fossil fuel plant retires, they still have a role in powering the future,” Biden said.
In Illinois they are converting a power plant to a solar farm. In California they are making an old oil plant into the world’s largest battery storage facility, he said.
Biden specifically gave a nod to an energy project in Wyoming.
“In Wyoming, innovators are chosen to — a retiring plant as the next site for the next-generation nuclear plant,” he said.
He is believed to be referring to a nuclear power plant in Kemmerer. Cowboy State Daily reported earlier this year that the natrium power plant is a “next generation” nuclear plant and is expected to generate 345 megawatts of power.
According to project estimates, approximately 2,000 workers will be needed for plant construction at the project’s peak. Once the plant is operational, approximately 250 people will support day-to-day activities, including plant security.
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