U.S.’s Best Hope For Real Climate Policy Is Fizzling. What Happens Now?

"Hopes are dimming after a lone coal-state Democrat sounded the death knell for President Joe Biden's clean electricity program."

"With just two weeks until global leaders gather in Scotland for the world’s biggest climate conference, the United States is about to let its leading proposal to cut emissions die in Congress. President Joe Biden had pledged to cut planet-heating pollution in half by 2030, and his allies in Congress proposed a program to pay power companies to replace their coal and gas-fired plants with renewables or retrofit them with carbon capture technology, or else face fines.

But after months of negotiations, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), whose home state and personal fortune depend on the continued burning of heavily polluting coal, appears to have effectively blocked inclusion of the president’s Clean Electricity Performance Program, or CEPP, in a sweeping government spending bill, according to multiple sources familiar with the talks.

The possibility that Democrats may fail for the second time in 12 years to pass a meaningful climate law, first reported Friday night by The New York Times, has set off a high-stakes scramble to find a plausible alternative, either by salvaging the funding and redirecting it to other programs or pushing through some creative eleventh-hour proposal."

Alexander C. Kaufman reports for HuffPost October 19, 2021.

SEE ALSO:

"U.S. Democrats Scramble To Hammer Out Climate Legislation Ahead Of Glasgow Talks" (Reuters)

"Joe Manchin Leads Opposition To Biden’s Climate Bill, Backed By Support From Oil, Gas And Coal" (Guardian)

"How Joe Manchin and Republicans Could Destroy the World" (Earther)

"Vice President Urges Enactment Of Climate Spending On Visit To Drought-Stricken Lake Mead" (Arizona Republic)

"Big Changes In White House Ideas To Pay For $2 Trillion Plan" (AP)

"Democrats Say They're Committed To Reducing Emissions In Biden Plan" (The Hill)

Source: HuffPost, 10/21/2021