Biden orders government to buy carbon-free power and electric cars in sweeping climate executive order

President Biden directed agencies to purchase more carbon-free power and electric cars in a sweeping executive order Wednesday meant to have the government weigh climate change in nearly everything it does.

The order also pauses new oil and gas leasing on federal lands, delivering on a campaign promise but creating immediate and fierce tensions with the oil and gas industry and congressional Republicans.

Biden’s order builds on executive actions he took on his first day in office, when he began the process to rejoin the Paris climate agreement and targeted more than 100 Trump-era environmental and climate deregulatory actions.