INVESTING IN AMERICA: Secretary Buttigieg Delivers Keynote Address at the 28th Annual Lake Tahoe Summit

Zephyr Cove, NV – This week, ahead of the two-year anniversary of the signing of the Inflation Reduction Act – the largest-ever climate investment in world history, U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg delivered the keynote address at the 28th Annual Lake Tahoe Summit.  

Every year, the Lake Tahoe Summit bring together federal, state, and local stakeholders from California and Nevada to address Lake Tahoe’s challenges, including climate resilience and transportation, and support innovative solutions to protect the lake for future generations. 

This year’s summit was hosted by U.S. Senator Catherine Cortez Masto and the theme was “Connecting Tahoe: Investing in Transit, Trails, and Technology for the Future.” During his address, Secretary Buttigieg highlighted the Biden-Harris administration’s investments in transportation that are reducing carbon pollution and making communities across the country, including Lake Tahoe, more resilient in the face of extreme weather.   

The full transcript of Secretary Buttigieg’s remarks. Watch full remarks here:    

Thank you. And good morning once again. Thank you so much. 

Thank you, Senator Cortez Masto, for encouraging me to come. Sometimes when a senator is calling, it's to ask you to do something you really don't want to do. This, by contrast, is a very happy task. So, I'm so glad that, that we were able to do this. Thank you. 

And likewise, I want to acknowledge Senator Jacky Rosen, who is such a key partner to this administration in delivering for the people in Nevada and the whole country—thank you for your work.  

Congressman [John] Garamendi, one of the most thoughtful and encouraging leaders I have worked with. I'm not just saying nice things about him because he happens to be a senior member of the committee that oversees my work in the House, but that helps. 

But each of them have provided leadership in passing infrastructure and climate law that has made so much of the work I'd like to share with you today possible.  

And I should note, among other things, it's the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law that helped to fund the new safer access road that we just took to get here. So, thank you for your leadership in making those things possible. 

Likewise, I want to recognize and thank Senator [Laphonza] Butler, Congressman [Mark] Amodei, and Congressman [Kevin] Kiley, who entered office at such a crucial time and who will continue to be, I know, vital partners as we deliver on the promise of this moment. So, thank you for your leadership and for your presence here today.  

Governor [Gavin] Newsom and [Joe] Lombardo, both of whom I have been in touch with leading up to this event, and their extraordinary teams leading the way on transportation and environmental work. I want to recognize them.

I want to thank Washoe Tribe Chairman [Serrell] Smokey and all of the tribal citizens and leaders who are here. Thank you for sharing your wisdom and for your tribe’s stewardship of this place.

The Tahoe Regional Planning agency and all of the state and local officials working day in, day out. They gave us an excellent briefing and orientation this morning, sharing their vision for what is possible, and we thank them for their daily work. They'll be the ones actually delivering all of the things that our department is proud to fund.

I want to thank the firefighters who are here, and all of the first responders keeping this community safe. Thank you for your presence. Thank you for your work.

To all of the community leaders and engaged citizens, and certainly the young people being honored. I want to thank you for all you do to continue to protect Lake Tahoe.

And like so many of the other speakers, even though they're not here physically, I very much feel the presence of Senator [Dianne] Feinstein and Senator [Harry] Reid. They were so generous and, helpful to me back when senators generally didn't return my calls, and you can feel the impact of their leadership here today. 

This job in three and a half years has now taken me to every state in the Union. I've seen some remarkable places, but I have never been to a place like Lake Tahoe. This is an incredible and beautiful setting for us to gather. 

And, in preparing to come, I was trying to think about when I had first heard of Lake Tahoe and I realized this very improbable way that I first came to know of this place. And I was about five years old. I traveled with my parents to Malta, the small island nation in the Mediterranean where my father immigrated from in the 1970s — the one place where Buttigieg is a common name.  

And it was an extraordinary time in my life. We visited family members, we explored that Mediterranean country where he grew up, and we stayed in a very basic but very pleasant, rented apartment. In that country, houses often go by a name rather than a numbered address, and the address, so to speak, the name of the place we stayed at was called Lake Tahoe. I had no idea what that meant, but I learned that the Maltese family we were renting from had once visited this place and were so enchanted with it that they named their home after it. And I think the fact that in one of the most famously scenic Mediterranean countries in the world, a family there thought back with such warmth on a place thousands of miles away here, and, against all Mediterranean instincts, I might add, a freshwater lake, I thought, I've got to see this place someday. And now I finally am.  

So already I have a sense of what makes this place so magical.  

Waters that evoke what the Greek poet Homer called the wine dark sea, for reasons having nothing to do with its color but that blue depth that has an opacity to it that's not unlike that of a glass of red wine.

I see the magic of this place and why you all work so hard to preserve it; that's why we've got a lot to talk about.

What I want to share with you is an optimistic outlook on our progress fighting climate change, and protecting Lake Tahoe, through, among other things, good transportation policy. This is not reflective, reflexive or naive optimism. It's an optimism I think is justified by evidence, by the work that we're undertaking... things that I've seen on the ground, here and across the country.

But to start, I do want to be clear about the stakes of why we're doing this work and the urgency behind it... something I'm also seeing across this country.  

July 21st was the Earth's hottest day in recorded history. That record stood for one day before it was broken again the very next day. All told, we are living through the hottest year in recorded history.  

Climate change is a global issue that has come to take almost cosmic proportions, but its consequences are very close to home—they are local, they are personal. We see it right here.  

Wildfires of increasing frequency and severity are now a regular threat to this basin. Even when they are not an immediate evacuation threat, they degrade the air quality here—like the consequences of the Park Fire and Crozier Fires. Makes you hesitate to let your kids play outside and breathe that in, or to yourself enjoy the great outdoors that are so iconic here.  

And of course, you've experienced wildfires much closer to home. Coming together on the third anniversary of the start of that Caldor Fire that burned over 220,000 acres and forced more than 50,000 people to evacuate.  

And I know you are confronting the fact that even on a blue-sky day like this, the lake itself is at risk. With air temperatures warming, the lake is also warming, and algae blooms are appearing near the shores. And we've seen across the country how that phenomenon has prevented people from using lakes that used to be such an important part of their lives and livelihoods.  

As Secretary, I have seen firsthand different versions of the threat and impact of climate change across America—a mudslide in Colorado that took out trucking supply chains, a drought on the Mississippi River that impacted barge movement, deteriorating infrastructure due to sea level rise, frequent and ferocious hurricanes on the east coast, a deadly wildfire in Hawaii, and so much more.  

It's really no longer appropriate to talk about climate change as a “threat,” which is a word that conveys something that might pose a problem later on. Climate change is upon us, and nothing can be gained by denying the harms that it is already visiting upon Americans in every part of this country. 

You may be remembering that I promised that my remarks would be optimistic, so I'll get to that part now. 

As I mentioned, we're getting to that because of you. The people of Tahoe are delivering forward-looking transportation policy that reduces carbon pollution and makes this community more resilient in the face of extreme weather. You're innovating, you're leading, you're crossing political lines and state lines, and we're proud to be your partner in that work. I got to see some of it today, and I want to highlight a few elements of that.

Starts by going back to the original mode of transportation, one often overlooked, but the one that we've actually been going with for most of the last 100,000 years or so, called walking, or a bit more broadly, what we now call active transportation. We always make things more complicated than they ought to be.  

Multi-use paths are ensuring that people can get to where they need to go, whether it's by foot or bicycle or wheelchair. And in doing so, they don't just enhance quality of life. They also save lives. They're part of our agenda to reverse the rise of roadway deaths in this country that has largely been propelled by what has been happening to vulnerable road users, like those who walk and bike and roll. Providing safe options for them is a core part of our mission. And so, I think in that sense, it's important to make clear that trails are not ornamental, they are fundamental to a good and safe transportation system. 

So, that's why one of the happy tasks I have today is, on behalf of the Biden Administration, to officially congratulate you on our $24 million award to build a new stretch of that Tahoe East Shore Trail that's going to make such a difference. 

And meanwhile, for trips where active transportation isn't the right choice, we're also supporting the important work going on here to modernize Tahoe's transit.  

When the right trail and transit infrastructure exist together, people have alternatives to single-occupancy vehicles. It means more commuters and more travelers are not forced to bring 2,000 pounds of metal with them every time they leave the house or go to a destination. And that's important not just for fighting climate change, but for fighting congestion, and improving local air quality and reducing the pollution that can directly affect the lake clarity that is so important in this place.  

So, on behalf of the Biden-Harris Administration, I'm also thrilled to formally congratulate you on our almost $8 million award for new diesel-electric hybrid busses that improve service and reduce congestion, pollution and noise in this community. 

Tahoe is also leading the way in making transportation networks here more resilient against extreme weather events like wildfires. So, this is the last time I get to do this - for now - in this speech... congratulations on our almost $2 million award to upgrade emergency communications and identify transportation vulnerabilities, on top of another $2 million for technology to analyze visitor travel patterns and deploy strategies to reduce congestion, particularly in emergencies. We are proud to support you in your work on resiliency in this community. 

So, Tahoe, in just the last year, has earned competitive federal awards to deliver multi-use trails, cleaner transit and transportation resilience.  And that is a credit to this community because those are also very competitive programs.  

And I certainly understand why this community is working so hard.  

This is one of the greatest natural gifts in all of America. As I shared earlier, I've met people from all over the world who are enchanted by this place, sometimes for the rest of their lives, on the strength of a single visit. And if you actually live here, I can only imagine how deeply and how fully this lake becomes a part of your being.  

Yet, as you all know, work to improve transportation and reduce pollution right here in the basin is essential, but it's not of itself enough.  

To protect Lake Tahoe and all of the places we care about, we have to swiftly reduce carbon pollution nationally and globally.  

We cannot protect Lake Tahoe alone. 

For that matter, the people of Utah cannot protect the Great Salt Lake alone.  

The people of New York cannot prevent the subways from flooding alone.  

But we can do all of those things if we act together.  

And that's what we've been doing, mobilizing across states and even across international borders to enlist one another in a shared project that is comparable in scale only to war efforts from previous generations.  

Except this time, it's not each other that we're fighting, it's each other that we're fighting for.  

So very briefly, I want to talk about some of the ways we're acting to reduce carbon pollution across the country and the globe through better transportation. First, we are harnessing the electric vehicle revolution. That's a revolution I want to emphasize was coming to the automotive sector no matter what. But certain things were far from certain. Would it happen quickly enough to make a difference against climate change? Would it happen fairly, so that every American could take advantage of the cost savings that EV owners get every month? And would it be made in America, by American workers? The policies of our Administration are aimed at answering all of those questions with a resounding yes! 

Next, as we see in Tahoe, we are building the infrastructure so Americans have more transportation options. We're making the biggest investment in public transit in the history of the United States. And to take just one of hundreds of examples, I began my week with a visit in Las Vegas for the start of construction on a new bus rapid transit line that's going to give residents there a faster, more reliable bus ride every day. 

We're also finally giving passenger rail its due in this country in the Biden-Harris Administration. 

We're building new train routes in the Midwest and Southeast. We're modernizing the heavily-used Northeast Corridor, and in April, I joined for the start of construction on what will be the first true high-speed rail operating on U.S. soil, connecting Las Vegas to Southern California. And we were excited about that project. 

But as you know, carbon pollution respects no national borders, so we're also working internationally.  

We're launching green shipping corridors between the West Coast and our allies in Asia, between the Great Lakes and Canada.   

And we're taking a global leadership role to push forward the use of more sustainable aviation fuel, which is also a huge economic boon for Americans. 

And that's the other thing I want to stress as I speak with you today: the economic opportunity of climate.  

Because for a long-time people have been sold a false choice climate versus jobs, as if the only ways to strengthen the economy were at the expense of our environment, and vice versa. It's just not true.  

We've got to put that idea behind us. And in the Biden-Harris Administration, we are showing, not telling, how fighting climate change is not just compatible with job creation, but essential to creating jobs for the future.  

I was just in Wisconsin. I sat down with farmers making a good living growing crops for ethanol and sustainable biofuels, the byproducts of which they now sell around the world through Port Milwaukee, where, I might add, we're making some investments to improve capacity. 

Just 70 miles away from here at the Tahoe Reno Industrial Center, this Administration supported a $2 billion loan commitment to help Redwood Materials build an EV battery recycling and manufacturing plant that's going to employ over 3,000 people in good-paying construction jobs and then, once built, will employ over 1,500 people in good-paying manufacturing jobs. 

Companies around the world are seeing these climate policies and the improved supply chain infrastructure - like the future inland port that we're funding in Fernley, Nevada - and they understand that the best way to capitalize on that clean energy future is to invest right here in America.  

Just since this administration arrived, we count 400 new or expanded facilities for processing materials, manufacturing batteries and assembling EVs. And those facilities alone are projected to create 140,000 jobs.  

So as a child of the industrial Midwest, someone whose boyhood hangout sat literally in the shadows of crumbling factory building, it means a lot to me to see these kinds of facilities growing again, often in places that had been left out of the global economic recovery until now. 75 percent of clean energy investments since 2022 have been in counties with incomes below the median, and we are proud to expand and extend that kind of opportunity. 

Now, in addition to the new jobs that we're creating through climate and resiliency work, we're also seeing that if we don't step this up, a failure to address climate change will threaten jobs that many people didn't think of as linked to climate at all. When I was in Salt Lake City, we heard about farmers and fishing guides and ski instructor struggling economically because of the Great Salt Lake literally drying. In Florida, we heard about astronomical rising costs of ensuring a home because of extreme weather. I know many here have been following what they went through at Lake Mead. We hear similar concerns everywhere we go.  

The transportation sector is the biggest contributor to climate change in the U.S. To me, that's nothing but a challenge to aspire to be the biggest contributor to solutions as well. And that's our focus. 

Of course, it’s not just transportation.  

On the energy side, the U.S. is projected to build more electric generation capacity this year than we have in two decades, 95 percent of which is clean energy.  

On the conservation side, the Biden-Harris Administration has protected more than 41 million acres of land and water, more than any previous administration at this stage. And the list goes on. 

When you add it all up, the result is extraordinary. America is preparing to cut our emissions in half by 2030 and reach net-zero by 2050. 

And look, we couldn't be doing this if President Biden and Vice President Harris hadn't passed the biggest climate law of any country in human history, alongside that most transformational infrastructure law in over 70 years.  

But, you know, I'm proud of those laws. But we also couldn't do this without you, without communities leading across the country. It's your visions that we're supporting, not ours. 

The one thing that all of the 60,000 projects that we’re supporting, including the ones around here have in common, is that zero out of those 60,000 were invented and cooked up at the USDOT headquarters in the Navy Yard in Washington. 

Our philosophy is that the ideas aren't going to come from Washington, but more of the funding should. And now, at last, it is. 

So, I'm optimistic, not complacent, but optimistic. But we have to stay with this work because often we hear about ideas for policy changes that would move us backwards off of these achievements. Achievements that in my opinion, ought to command bipartisan support. Sometimes I find myself in Washington still having to assert and defend the simple reality that climate change is even occurring, and that it's hurting people today. 

The American people are smart and can handle the truth when they are told it in straightforward terms, and they deserve a robust debate, not on whether to do something or do nothing, but on how to effectively and aggressively confront these challenges. 

So, when this Administration is investing in resiliency and climate, we don't care if those that community's elected officials voted with us or against us. Climate change is hurting everybody, and fighting climate change is creating economic opportunities that help everybody. And the Biden-Harris Administration serves all of America.  

And that's one more reason that it’s special to be here. In addition to some, some opportunities to geek out on transportation policy.  

When I was at the TRPA [Tahoe Regional Planning Agency], I also got a bit of a history lesson. I saw this newspaper story where you had Governor [Ronald] Reagan and [Paul] Laxalt and [Richard] Nixon doing what they could for environmental protection, leading to that extraordinary bi-state bipartisan cooperation that we see here. There's a lesson in that.  

There are glimmers in that historical tradition and in what we see around us today of the kind of future I want to live in, a future where, when it comes to climate change and environmental protection, the only argument between the parties is over who's doing it better - not whether we ought to do something about it at all. And I see so many elements of that right here in the bipartisan cooperation surrounding us on this stage, at this forum, and in this place.  

I'll end with this. The new federal program that that funded that resiliency project I mentioned is called PROTECT - in the great tradition of how name bills get named in Washington. It's an acronym for something. I just remember that the “R” is for resilience. 

But PROTECT is also a fitting name. I worry our language actually gets away from us when we talk about “the planet,” as if it was an abstract thing that we're protecting the planet. We're protecting something a lot more close to home than that. We're protecting this place. We're protecting each other. We're protecting our kids.  

Climate change need not be yet another front in some made up partisan culture war. What it is, is a threat and an opportunity that can bring us together.  

I see an opportunity for the same sort of unity of purpose that I experienced when I was deployed in uniform to bring us together; not carrying arms, but arm-in-arm to get something done. 

I see it in the young people who are being recognized today, and here too, we can look to our future with an eye toward our tradition.  

One of the most visionary American leaders on this issue, on these issues of environmental protection, long before anybody was talking about climate change, was [President] Teddy Roosevelt. He said: “Of all the questions which can come before this nation, short of the actual preservation of its existence in a great war, there is none which compares in importance with the great central task of leaving this land, even a better land for our descendants than it is for us.” 

I mentioned that coming here was a happy task, and it is. But now that Chasten and I have two three-year-old twins at home, any trip is not one that we take lightly. 

But our kids are just getting old enough now to ask me what it is I do all day. In fact, our daughter, it's the very last part of our bedtime ritual routine. You know, after the bath time and the story and the other story and the book, and the second book... some of you had toddlers. Then you’ve got to do the blanket, and then she tosses it off and you put the blanket back on. Then you’ve got to count to ten. Then you’ve got to tell the neighbor to be quiet. Then you've got to check for dinosaurs under the bed. Then we finally get to the end and she says: “Tell me about your work.” Ok... I asked her one time, I was like, does talking about my work help you go to sleep? She said, “yeah.”  

But I think that I can put, unlike some parts of my job, I can put this into terms that will even make sense to a three-year- old. That I went to a place full of people who are working to make their roads safer, to make their air cleaner, and to keep their lakes safe. 

That is something that I can explain to a three-year-old. And then later on, when I'm face to face with a 30-year-old asking me: “Hey, Papa, what were you doing back in the 2020s when everything was on the line?” I can say what we were doing was teaming up to make sure that this world would be better for you. 

Thank you for being a part of that. Thank you for the chance to join you and keep up the great work.  

Thanks very much. 

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