Monkeypox? Climate? Deciding what's a national emergency

WASHINGTON (AP) — In November 1979, a little over a week after student militants seized control of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and took 52 American citizens hostage, President Jimmy Carter issued Executive Order 12170 declaring a national emergency against Iran.

That order remains in effect today, renewed most recently in the weeks before last Thanksgiving by President Joe Biden, who noted then that “our relations with Iran have not yet normalized.”

The Biden administration's declaration Aug. 4 of a public health emergency on monkeypox frees up federal money and resources to fight a virus that has already infected more than 10,000 people in the United States. But public health emergencies expire every 90 days, unless extended by the Department of Health and Human Services.

Those are different from national emergency declarations, which give presidents broad leeway to make policy and tap federal funds without congressional approval. That's what activists have clamored for to better fight climate change, but Biden has held off despite energy shortages in much of the world and high gasoline prices at home.

“This is actually the true test of whether President Biden takes the climate crisis seriously,” Karen Orenstein, climate director of Friends of the Earth. "There could not be a more crucial move.”

Presidents have declared 76 national emergencies in the last nearly five decades, and 42 remain in effect, according to a list compiled by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School.

Biden has recently declared emergencies related to hostage-taking and detained U.S. nationals abroad, while extending one on Mali. He's also issued them on Myanmar and Afghanistan and authorizing sanctions on Russia, Ethiopia and individuals linked to the global illicit drug...