New York Times: Joe Manchin’s climate announcement has the potential to be a very big deal.
NYT: Until yesterday, the Democratic Party seemed as if it were on the verge of squandering a major opportunity to combat climate change. …
Senator Joe Manchin had been blocking any deal, and the Senate is so closely divided that the Democrats cannot afford to lose a single vote. Yesterday, however, Manchin appeared to change his mind. He announced that he had agreed to include hundreds of billions of dollars for climate and energy programs in a bill that would also reduce prescription drug prices, raise taxes on the affluent and shrink the federal deficit. If Manchin and other Democrats remain united, it would be a very big deal. “This has the opportunity to be an enormous breakthrough for climate progress,” Sam Ricketts, co-founder of Evergreen Action, an environmental group, told The Times. …
If this tentative agreement leads to legislation, it will probably have more lasting importance than anything else President Biden signs in his first two years in office. … The package will include tax credits to speed up the development of wind, solar, hydrogen and nuclear power; a tax credit to reduce the price of new electric vehicles; and money to address the disproportionate burden of pollution on low-income communities and communities of color. … Senate Democrats estimate that, by the end of the decade, the legislation will allow the U.S. to cut emissions 40 percent below 2005 levels.
As my colleagues Emily Cochrane, Jim Tankersley and Lisa Friedman write: “The plan would raise most of its new tax revenue, an estimated $313 billion, by imposing a minimum tax on the so-called book income of large corporations, like Amazon and FedEx, that currently use tax credits and other maneuvers to reduce their tax rates below the 21 percent corporate income tax rate in the United States.”
The New York Times call the bill “the most ambitious action ever taken by the United States to try to stop the planet from catastrophically overheating.”
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Politico: ‘Holy s–t’: Surprise Senate deal sets stage for record climate change package – “People familiar with the effort to bring Manchin back to the table on climate said there had been an intensive effort to convince him of the merits of supporting the new technologies — including from company executives who came forward with new plans to build manufacturing in West Virginia.” … The result of those talks, Sen. Tina Smith of Minnesota said, “is the most significant action on climate and clean energy we’ve ever taken.” … The bill is also expected to include a $7,500 credit for electric vehicles and a smaller credit for buying used EVs, said Fred Krupp, president of the Environmental Defense Fund. …
Fred Krupp, president of the Environmental Defense Fund added the package also includes a fee on oil and gas companies’ methane emissions that would begin in 2025 and would send $60 billion to low-income areas and communities of color that face disproportionate environmental pollution.
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DailyWire.com: Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) resurrected key pieces of President Joe Biden’s “Build Back Better” agenda in a surprising agreement with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) on Wednesday.
The Democratic senators agreed to a spending package titled the “Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.” The bill proposes to increase taxes on billion-dollar companies, spend $369 billion on climate and energy programs, and extend health care subsidies for Affordable Care Act users for three more years, according to The Wall Street Journal.
In recent weeks, Manchin shot down Democrat attempts at pushing through Biden’s agenda, and reportedly told Democratic leaders he would “unequivocally” refuse to support legislation related to climate change and tax increases.
Now, the West Virginia senator claims reconciling with Democrats on this package will help the country fight inflation.
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Fox News: Manchin frustrated Democrats for months, consistently refusing to support party-line legislation that at one point Democrats wanted to cost over $3 trillion. Democrats termed that legislation “Build Back Better,” and Manchin shut down negotiations on it late last year.
But with Democrats grasping for a legislative win ahead of the midterms, Schumer, D-N.Y., kept up talks directly with Manchin through the spring and summer. In a lengthy statement, the moderate senator said Wednesday those talks resulted in a deal for a slimmed-down bill that includes tax, climate and prescription drug provisions.
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Michael Shellenberger’s analysis: Manchin Levels Energy Playing Field – New proposal by Sen. Joe Manchin slashes the renewable energy subsidy by 80%, extends it to nuclear, and makes renewables leases on federal lands dependent upon oil and gas leases
But the legislation also slashes the renewable energy tax credit by 80%, extends it to existing nuclear plants, and prohibits wind and solar development on federal land, or in federal waters, unless oil or gas lease sales have also been issued. As such, the legislation goes a long way toward doing what Manchin has long said he wanted to do, which is to level the playing field between all energy sources.
To be sure, the bill is still tilted toward renewables. It includes tens of billions in tax credits to build solar panels and wind turbines in the US, tens of billions in grants and loan guarantees for renewables, and billions for energy efficiency. …
People think solar panels protect the environment but they require 300+ times as much land as conventional energy sources and now the Los Angeles Times has discovered that they could “contaminate groundwater with toxic heavy metals such as lead, selenium and cadmium.” …
Though I dislike the large land use impacts of solar panels and wind turbines, and the way they increase electricity prices, I would much prefer to see them manufactured in the United States than in China, where they are produced by persecuted Uyghur Muslims with coal; Manchin’s legislation would encourage re-shoring those industries.
What about its impact on climate change? Roger Pielke ran the numbers and found that, even if it achieved Biden’s 50% emissions-reduction target for 2030, which it almost certainly won’t, the impact on overall global emissions would be nearly unmeasurable.
“In fact, that small level of emissions impact is well within both emissions measurement error as well as the large uncertainty in how emissions-policies will evolve to 2030,” notes Pielke.
Wait, so this massive spending bill that was supposed to prevent the Earth from entering a new geologic era will now only have a 'minimum' impact on climate change?! https://t.co/7JkiLeTgHM
— Marc Morano (@ClimateDepot) July 31, 2022
