On one of his first days in office all the way back in January, Joe Biden signed an executive order pausing new oil and gas leasing on public lands. His administration framed the move as an attempt to “restore balance on public lands and waters” and “invest in [a] clean energy future,” with the president himself saying that “we can’t wait any longer.”

“It’s not time for small measures,” he said before signing. “We need to be bold.”

An avalanche of coverage ran with this framing, using the freeze as part of the basis to declare the Biden administration not just a sharp break from Donald Trump’s four years but a radical, transformational new frontier in US policymaking. It was a “stark contrast” from Trump’s actions laying out a “historic vision for how the United States can once again become a global climate leader,” wrote the press, a “sweeping assault on climate change” that showed he was “serious about cutting the country’s outsized contribution to global warming.”