I can’t find the article now, but apparently at least one QOP senator was on record before the deal was even close to finalized that the Dems would obviously be using reconciliation also.
From a political view, it would mean that the QOP can point to the bipartisan bill and tell folks “see, we’re helping the country” without having to vote for things they don’t support.
Of course, we know they take credit for things they vote against, so that isn’t the selling point it used to be.
I don’t see this as bad news. If the republicans who backed the bipartisan deal back away because they now would rather nothing get done than something then it’s all the more reason for the democrats who have not committed to the reconciliation bill to join the party line.
It could be a big win for Biden in fact. If he tried to jam through the reconciliation bill six weeks ago he would have suffered a loss because Manchin, Sinema and possibly one or two others in his party were against pushing through another deal by reconciliation without even trying to find a bipartisan approach. By waiting to get a bipartisan deal agreed and several republican senators on the record as supporting it he has now forced the republicans on to the back foot: stand by our deal and you get to take the credit or vote against the deal you helped create and my party will go it alone.
And now Biden has backed off his position that he would only sign the bipartisan deal if he also gets a larger “human infrastructure” package through reconciliation.
I’m not sure why Biden felt the need to link them both in the first place. I assume that it was because of the flak he was catching from progressives that the bipartisan deal didn’t include many of their priorities, but were they really going to vote against it when push comes to shove? And maybe the idea was that making passage of the bipartisan bill contingent on passing the reconciliation bill would keep Joe Manchin in line, but if so that’s a pretty bad misreading of Joe Manchin.
Given that the Democrats are the only party that believes it’s real, I really don’t think they can afford to effectively not address climate change legislatively during this 2-year period. They obviously have to manage the personalities esp. of the moderate senators and not make them feel like leadership is just imposing their will, but we really can’t afford to pass infrastructure and then just let the climate part of reconciliation die on the vine.
There is, in fact a caucus in the (RINO?) party that has cleaved off from the CFEFWSG’s “climate change is a myth” hill-to-die-on and are acknowledging it. Even acknowledging the anthropogensis of it.
Fair enough, but as a practical matter, without a Democratic trifecta there is never going to be anything done about climate change. If the Dems can’t put it together during this term they may have to wait a decade for another opportunity.
The US “elected” W instead of the eeeeevil Algore a couple of decades back. That was our last, missed, chance to catch this thing and hold it down. The “12 years” window posited by the IPCC has contracted considerably since first put forth. I would guess the tipping point is probably under 3 by now. And the truly sad thing is that, if great havoc and economic distress clearly starts to manifest in that time frame, the Ds will get repudiated for letting the country go to shit, so a “course correction” will be called for, meaning the voters will flock to the person who will make it worse. Because, that is what happens.
Oh yeah, I agree. Even the maximum that is possible in this term is too little too late. Unfortunately the consequences of failure now will still have exponential effects on the acceleration of climate change.
Unfortunately we’re probably going to have to get used to being in the perpetual state of a massive migrant crisis, massive loss in land that is useful for agriculture, etc, extinction of a huge number of species and massive unrest as a result of all of that globally. The only real chance is some combination of technological advances and just being desperate enough to try to some James Bond-villian shit to fight climate change.
Well, it looks like the bipartisan infrastructure bill is back on track. There was never a need to explicitly link this with the larger investment in child care, climate change, etc. Just do them both.
The Manchin quote in that article is interesting. He’s pushing back against progressives saying that, “If they think in reconciliation I’m going to throw caution to the wind and go to $5 trillion or $6 trillion when we can only afford $1 trillion or $1.5 trillion or maybe $2 trillion and what we can pay for, then I can’t be there.” You could view that as a major disagreement, or you could view it as Manchin’s opening bid that he’s on board for $2 trillion in reconciliation spending (which doesn’t need Republicans to pass).
As the old punchline goes: “We’ve already established what you are. Now we’re just haggling over the price.”
Or for the rest of the world to do enough to make up for the United States’ lesser action. I really hate to think the fate of global human civilization lies solely in the hands of any single country, never mind that one country’s most rural, conservative voters.
At least one op-ed I read somewhere speculated that this was just Biden making one of his famous off-script gaffes, which he later walked back.
I don’t think so, given that Pelosi had already said she wouldn’t take up the bipartisan bill without the reconciliation. Also I don’t think Pelosi has walked that back.
I tend to agree. Although the Administration is leaning hard into this being a “clarification” of his remarks, this wasn’t a gaffe. Biden immediately drew criticism from progressives when he backed the bipartisan bill, and this was his way of putting out that fire. And as you note, it was a position that had already been taken by Speaker Pelosi.
It’s interesting to me that the Republicans who were involved in the deal seem to be willing to let Biden walk it back. To be fair to them, they are opening themselves up to some political risk by cutting any kind of deal with the Administration when most of their party thinks that Biden is an illegitimate President. The easiest thing would have been to use this as an excuse to run for cover, but Romney, Portman, Cassidy and the others seem to be genuinely interested in getting something done.
The problem with what they’ve come up with is that it’s basically politics-as-usual. Which is the reason Trump got into office in the first place. The positive effects of this bill won’t be visible for years. Without immediate jobs & money flowing into communities this bill won’t even be noticed by average people. Meanwhile, Republicans get to crow about how they saved America from Democrat overspending and going socialist, while taking full credit for the positives that do show up. To have a chance in 2022, Democrats need big, bold, visible actions with immediate impact on the lives of middle-class Americans. A $15/hour minimum wage, for example. (Which will also solve the worker shortage) Or a massive upgrade in areas like eldercare & resources for the disabled. Politics-as-usual means they lose in 2022.
Are you talking about China? Because the fate of the world’s climate lies much more in their hands than any other country. China’s CO2 emissions are already double that of the U.S., and growing fast while US CO2 emissions are declining. China is building coal plants faster than they are being decommissioned elsewhere.
In terms of global warming, the Biden Administration is completely incoherent. Biden wants massive new industrial projects all across thr country, almost none of which have anything to do with climate change except to be generators of CO2. He approved the pipeline between Russia and Germany, and wants an Iran deal in part so that the price of oil is pushed down and supply increased.
His vision of building trains across the country will make global warming worse. His insistence on spending massive amounts of money for social programs takes money away from being used to mitigate or slow global warming. The insistence on using ‘made in America’ and union labor for infrastructure will drive up the cost and limit how much can be done. And as far as I can tell, they aren’t talking at all about nuclear power, which is really the only hope we have.
So far, Biden gets an ‘F’ for global warming policy. And that’s not due to Republican intransigence, it’s right in his initial proposals. There’s zero in there that will do anything but make global warming worse.
I mean he’s not going to succeed (and I don’t think is trying) to move us directly into a post-carbon future, and is clearly viewing the climate policy as both something that is compartmentalized from oil diplomacy and something that doubles as a jobs program. But I don’t think there’s any universe where the climate proposals the Dems are offering aren’t a significant improvement to at least delay climate change.
And why is China the major GHG generator?
Is this a trick question? They are major GHG generator because they are a huge country moving up in wealth and building massive infrastructure.
Another factor is that as we drive away heavy industry with higher energy costs and regulations and lawsuits, they land in China. We feel good about ‘doing something’, but the products are still made, except now using coal energy and slave labor. I’ve been saying that would happen for years, and that anything we do to slow global warming is a waste of time if we don’t have China, India and Russia on board. The more we cut back, the cheaper fossil fuels get for China, and the more heavy industry that moves there the less incentive they have to cut back. We’ve handed them a huge comparative advantage in energy cost, and they are taking advantage of it.
But the major reason is because they are a gigantic country transitioning from the third world to a much more energy intensive, richer economy. Because energy use is almost a proxy for wealth, and the richer they get, the more of it they will consume.
But the reasons don’t matter. I was just pointing out that the U.S. is not in the driver’s seat here. No matter what you do, you are going to be at the mercy of China’s emissions. The U.S. is currently generating around 20% of the world’s CO2. China is close to half. In another decade or two, the U.S. will likely be down to closer to 10%, and China will be at 75%. And the things we do in the west to cut back will just give China space to emit more.
But this is a hijack. I’d be glad to continue this in another thread if you want.
This is the heart of the matter. China produces a significant fraction of goods that are purchased in the US. In other words, Chinese GHG generation is merely US GHG generation by proxy.
Good on her: