NEW YORK — President Biden on Tuesday is touring two northeastern states ravaged by the remnants of Hurricane Ida, surveying the steep damage as his administration prepares to ask Congress for billions in additional federal aid to respond to last week's fatal storm and other recent natural disasters.

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       Biden, in his second Ida-related visit in less than a week, is using his trip to press for robust action to combat climate change and focus attention on his expansive domestic infrastructure agenda in Congress, which includes significant climate-related provisions.

       In a briefing at an emergency center in Somerset County in New Jersey, Biden warned that no area of the country was immune from the destructive impact of climate change.

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       “We’re now living in real time what the country is going to look like,” Biden said during the roundtable, flanked by New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy (D), Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Deanne Criswell and various state officials. “We can’t turn it back very much, but we can prevent it from getting worse.”

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       The president added: “We’ve got to make sure that we don’t leave any community behind.”

       After the roundtable in northern New Jersey, Biden visited the Lost Valley neighborhood of Manville, N.J., a small borough bordered by two rivers that have been prone to flooding after major storms, where he shook hands and chatted with residents, and embraced a young child who had handed the president a note.

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       Asked by reporters about the scope of the flood damage in Manville, Biden said he saw water marks that were as high as the windows of the homes.

       “Literally over your head,” Biden noted.

       The president then traveled to Queens in New York to discuss his administration’s Ida response.

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       In tandem with Biden’s trip Tuesday, administration officials said the White House plans to ask Congress for at least $24 billion in additional federal aid to respond to hurricanes, wildfires, earthquakes and natural disasters dating back to early last year.

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       Of that preliminary figure, more than $14 billion is needed to assist various states that are still recovering from catastrophic weather events separate from Ida. On Ida specifically, the administration estimated that at least another $10 billion will be necessary, although that number is likely to climb higher as officials continue to survey the damage.

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       “Given the scale and scope of these natural disasters, everyone must work together to get Americans the help they desperately need,” said Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), who accompanied Biden in Queens.

       The administration is asking lawmakers to include those additional dollars in legislation that must pass before the end of September to continue operating the federal government — adding another dilemma this month to a Congress that is already trying to not only craft Biden’s ambitious legislative agenda but to perform the basic functions of government.

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       In addition to averting a government shutdown, Congress must lift the government’s borrowing limit in the coming weeks to avoid defaulting on federal debt. Republican lawmakers have said they will oppose efforts to raise the limit, blaming the White House’s massive infrastructure and social spending programs even though increasing the debt limit deals with liabilities that have already been incurred, not policies that have yet to be enacted. Democrats have pointed out that much of borrowing at issue was done during the Trump administration.

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       Democrats have indicated that they want to handle both government funding and the debt limit in one package this month. Including disaster aid for Ida in that bill — the strategy outlined by the Biden administration Tuesday — could make it more difficult for GOP lawmakers from hard-hit states to oppose the measure.

       To that end, a half-dozen House Republicans representing Louisiana, as well as the state’s two GOP senators, wrote to the White House last week, asking for emergency supplemental aid — a package that would be independent of must-pass government funding due by Sept. 30.

       Ida, which came ashore as a Category 4 hurricane, killed dozens across the Gulf Coast and in the Northeast, including more than 40 in New Jersey and New York.