• Hill Heat
  • Posts
  • “I think it’s wonderful that we are all on the same page!”

“I think it’s wonderful that we are all on the same page!”

To celebrate the IRA, the GOP offers their version of Biden-Manchin dirty deal

Author

Brad Johnson
September 13, 2022

PRESENTED BY SWASHBUCKLERS, SKINFLINTS, AND TURNCOATS

President Joe Biden—who is backing Sen. Joe Manchin’s (D-W.Va.) dirty pipeline deal —is gathering “thousands” of activists and supporters at the White House’s South Lawn to celebrate the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act this afternoon.

Biden’s insistence on pushing the Manchin plan is muddying the celebration, however.

Five more members of the House have signed on to Natural Resources chair Raúl Grijalva’s (D-Ariz.) letter opposing the dirty deal, bringing the number of signers to 77. The new signatories include Rep. Anthony Brown (D-Md.) and swing-district Reps. Abigail Spanberger (D-Va.) and David Trone (D-Md.), all members of the business-friendly New Democrat Coalition, as well as California Reps. Ted Lieu and Jackie Speier.

Big-money Democratic environmental groups who are spending big to promote the Inflation Reduction Act as a reason to elect Democrats this fall—Climate Power, League of Conservation Voters, and Natural Resources Defense Council—have finally come out publicly against the dirty deal, in a letter signed by Gene Karpinski, Lori Lodes, and Manish Bapna.

Manchin’s Republican counterpart, Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), has released her own version of environment-gutting legislation, tired of waiting for the plan Manchin is working with Sens. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) and Tom Carper (D-Del.) to craft. Capito’s legislation, the Simplify Timelines and Assure Regulatory Transparency (START) Act, is based on the amendment she and climate denier Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) submitted to the Inflation Reduction Act last month. Capito’s bill mandates the construction of the fracked-gas Mountain Valley Pipeline, “hits on key GOP priorities and would codify many Trump-era changes — like faster environmental reviews, water permit approvals and restrictions on the metric known as the ‘social cost of carbon.’” Capito’s bill has 43 Republican co-sponsors.

“I think it’s wonderful that we are all on the same page,” Manchin said of the Capito plan.

It looks like Manchin hopes that when he finally releases his plan, the extremist GOP proposal will make his sacrifice-zone plan look like a reasonable “compromise.”1

There may be a silver lining to global warming: it’s taking down Twitter.

E&E News’s Heather Richards, David Iaconangelo, and Miranda Willson have a fun look at the madcap effort by federal agencies to implement the climate and energy provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act. As Randi Spivak, public lands director at the Center for Biological Diversity, warns:

“America’s public lands are about to undergo massive industrialization from the triple whammy of the IRA’s push for more oil and gas leasing, more expansive wind and solar production, and a major push for mining.”

Yesterday, the Interior Department “proposed to strengthen certain safety regulations for offshore oil and gas drilling that were loosened under the Trump administration.”

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimundo, and Mexico President Andrés Manuel López Obrador announced Monday a U.S.-Mexico partnership for lithium mining and semiconductor production.

The European Union is planning a windfall profits tax on the oil and gas industry to help manage their spiraling fuel-cost crisis.

Urban planners Alexander Shevchenko, Sergii Rodionov and Olena Pavlenko are envisioning a Green New Deal for Ukraine when it is able to rebuild from Russia’s devastation.

Judge Richard Leon has “reinstated an oil and gas lease and drilling permit issued four decades ago on land in northwestern Montana considered sacred to the Blackfeet Nation.”

When you’re looking to really accelerate global warming, follow Indonesia’s example, and chop down tropical rainforest for build coal mines.

Climate Action Today:

Thanks for subscribing and spreading the word. DMs are open—@climatebrad

1 “Without compromise, there would be no deal, as we understand how it works here in Washington, D.C. The President is committed to the deal, and we recognize that an element of that is a — is an agreement between Senator Schumer and Senator Manchin to pass a permitting form — a permitting reform bill.” — White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Air Force One Monday.

Subscribe to Hill Heat

Climate science, policy, politics, and action

Reply

or to participate.