Hurricane Ida: Biden tours flood-hit areas, calls climate change “existential threat”

U.S. President Joe Biden on Tuesday toured the sites of deadly floods that submerged parts of the Northeast after the remnants of Hurricane Ida swept through the region, and said the storm demonstrated the ravages of climate change as he pressed for investments to boost infrastructure and address the impacts of the climate crisis.

"Climate change poses an existential threat to our lives, to our economy, and the threat is here. It's not going to get any better," Biden said after touring neighborhoods in New Jersey and New York City's Queens borough that were impacted by the storm. "We can stop it from getting worse."

It was Biden's second trip in recent days to areas slammed by the storm, shifting his focus to domestic priorities after weeks of public attention to the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Biden made fighting climate change a key plank of his 2020 presidential campaign and a top priority of his administration, but some of his goals rely on getting the U.S. Congress to pass multitrillion-dollar legislation on infrastructure and other priorities.

Biden noted that wildfires, hurricanes and floods were hitting every part of the United States, with more than 100 million Americans affected this summer alone. The storms, he said, will only be getting worse.