President Biden announced $7 billion in grants for solar power projects on Monday and tried to draw a contrast with Republicans who want to roll back his policies on climate change.
In remarks at Prince William Forest in Virginia, Mr. Biden said the money from his signature climate and energy law, the Inflation Reduction Act, would help provide solar power for hundreds of thousands of homes in disadvantaged communities.
“Despite the overwhelming devastation in red and blue states, there’s still those who deny climate is in crisis,” Mr. Biden said at the start of a week in which his top officials will fan out across the country to promote his environmental policy. “Our MAGA Republican friends don’t seem to think it’s a crisis.”
He also said the American Climate Corps, a new work force for people hoping to combat climate change, would create thousands of jobs for the next generation.
Mr. Biden’s Earth Day event comes as he tries to energize younger voters, many of whom are disillusioned with the 2024 candidates and infuriated over the administration’s handling of Israel’s war in Gaza.
On Monday, Mr. Biden tried to strike a middle ground when speaking about the turmoil on college campuses. Asked whether he condemned “the antisemitic protesters,” Mr. Biden said, “I condemn the antisemitic protests.” He added: “I also condemn those who don’t understand what’s going on with the Palestinians.”
Mr. Biden leads his Republican opponent, former President Donald J. Trump, among young voters, and many approve of his record on the environment when contrasted with Mr. Trump’s. Mr. Biden’s lead, however, is smaller than it was at this point during the 2020 election cycle, according to a Harvard Youth Poll released last week.
Another poll, from October, found that just 31 percent of voters younger than 30 were “satisfied” with Mr. Biden’s record on climate change.
Danielle Deiseroth, the executive director of Data for Progress, a left-leaning research firm, said Mr. Biden could use his efforts to combat climate change to bolster support among young voters.
“The bigger fear is not necessarily young voters turning out en masse for Trump. It’s them staying home,” Ms. Deiseroth said. “That’s where the climate stuff does come into play, to sort of energize and also to scare young people to coming out to vote.”
Mr. Biden has faced a messaging problem when it comes to the Inflation Reduction Act, his most consequential climate policy to date. The legislation contained hundreds of billions of dollars in tax credits to help companies switch to low-carbon electricity sources like wind, solar and nuclear power. It also included billions in incentives for people to buy electric vehicles and electric heat pumps for their homes.
The law, signed in 2022, is already having ripple effects: Across the country, businesses have announced plans for more than 150 factories that would build electric vehicles, batteries, solar panels and wind turbines. Sales of electric cars and installations of large-scale solar power plants both hit record highs last year.
Yet polls suggest that few Americans seem to know about the law.
One potential problem is that many of the climate law’s outcomes are not yet fully visible. While companies have announced more than $100 billion in new manufacturing investments in states like Arizona, Georgia and Michigan, many of those factories are not yet up and running.
Some environmentalists have sought to publicize the law’s effects. Climate Power, a liberal advocacy group, plans to spend $80 million on election-year advertising to contrast Mr. Biden’s legislative accomplishments with the actions of Mr. Trump, who has mocked climate science and has vowed to roll back programs to promote clean energy.
Other climate activists have sharply criticized Mr. Biden for not doing enough to curtail fossil fuel drilling in the United States. U.S. oil and gas production soared to record highs last year. Many activists have focused anger on Mr. Biden’s approval of Willow, an $8 billion oil drilling project on pristine federal land in Alaska, and on federal approval of a natural gas pipeline from West Virginia to Virginia that has been opposed by environmentalists.
“President Biden has taken historic action on climate change and done more than any president in history to combat the climate crisis, but that bar is unfortunately quite low,” said Stevie O’Hanlon, the communications director for the Sunrise Movement, a group of young climate activists. “If Joe Biden wants to be seen as a climate president by young voters, he needs to decisively take action to end the fossil fuel era.”
In recent months, Mr. Biden has taken a series of steps to try to slow down domestic fossil fuel production. In January, the administration said it would pause the approval of new terminals that export liquefied natural gas in order to study the issue further. This month, the Interior Department said it would ban oil drilling across nearly 13 million acres in Alaska’s North Slope.
Lisa Friedman contributed reporting.