• About
    • Which Energy Mix is this?
  • Climate News Network Archive
  • Contact
The climate news that makes a difference.
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
  FEATURED
Renewables ‘Set to Soar’ with 440 GW of New Installations in 2023: IEA June 4, 2023
Greek Industrial Giant Announces 1.4-GW Alberta Solar Farm, Canada’s Biggest June 4, 2023
Shift to Remote Work Cuts Commutes, Frees Downtown Space for Affordable Housing June 4, 2023
2.7M Hectares Lost, Nova Scotia at Ground Zero in ‘Unprecedented’ Early Wildfire Season June 4, 2023
Is Equinor’s Bay du Nord ‘Delay’ a Cancellation in Slow Motion? June 1, 2023
Next
Prev

Senate ‘Detour’ Puts Biden Climate Plan at Risk

June 9, 2021
Reading time: 4 minutes

The United States Congress/Wikimedia Commons

The United States Congress/Wikimedia Commons

1
SHARES
 

One of the staunchest proponents of climate action in the United States Senate is warning that a fast, ambitious approach to carbon reductions may be falling off the Biden administration’s priority list.

“OK, I’m now officially very anxious about climate legislation. I’ll admit I’m sensitive from the Obama climate abandonment, but I sense trouble,” Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) tweeted Monday, in the opening segment of a six-point thread.

  • The climate news you need. Subscribe now to our engaging new weekly digest.
  • You’ll receive exclusive, never-before-seen-content, distilled and delivered to your inbox every weekend.
  • The Weekender: Succinct, solutions-focused, and designed with the discerning reader in mind.
Subscribe

“Climate has fallen out of the infrastructure discussion, as it took its bipartisanship detour. It may not return. So then what?” he asked. “I don’t see the preparatory work for a close Senate climate vote taking place in the administration. Why not marshal business support?”

So far, “corporate America is still completely AWOL if not worse on climate in Congress. All the major corporate trade associations suck—all of them,” Whitehouse added. And on the community side, “groups and advocates are quarreling—My way! No, my way! We need everything, not ‘my thing’. Oy.”

He added that “oceans are a big part of climate and so far no significant oceans/coasts effort apparent in administration. Trying to repair that in Senate.”

President Joe Biden has spent a good part of the last month trying to negotiate with Senate Republicans on a bipartisan infrastructure plan, hamstrung by voting rules that require support form 60% of senators on major decisions. Democrats and Republicans in Senate each hold 50 seats in the 100-member chamber, which means Democrats can pass some legislation with Vice-President Kamala Harris breaking the tie in her role as Senate President—as long as all 50 Democrats vote in unison.

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) has been identified as a major obstacle to much of the Biden agenda, and CNBC is reporting this week that he’s under pressure from the Koch network to oppose his own party’s legislative priorities.

Last week, Grist warned that the administration “only climate plan” is in jeopardy. By the time Biden unveiled his US$2.25-trillion American Jobs Plan in April, it was already scaled back from the $10 trillion progressive Democrats had calculated for their Green New Deal. But it “included huge spending on clean energy, a civilian jobs program known as the ‘climate corps’, and a push to get electric cars on the road all across America. It was without question Biden’s primary plan to cut carbon emissions. The only one. The big one.”

But now, “key features of the bill—like a requirement to produce electricity from clean sources, or hundreds of billions of dollars in support for electric vehicles—are in contention as Republicans and Democrats tussle over the price tag,” Grist said. “And without them, the country’s chance of cutting carbon emissions 50% by 2030—as Biden recently promised at his international climate summit—is basically zero.”

Grist has more on the political machinations that have been afoot.

When Biden released his 2022 budget two weeks ago, CNBC reported that it included $36 billion for climate programming, an increase of $14 billion over 2021, with “large new investments” in areas like clean energy, climate and sustainability research, and water infrastructure. E&E News cast the entire $6-trillion budget as a “whole of government” approach to climate, while The Hill pointed to an administration plan to cut fossil fuel tax benefits by $35 billion.

But in the U.S. more than in Canada, the budget is seen less as a final government financial blueprint and more as a first pitch to kick off negotiations with often fractious legislators in the House and the Senate. In this case, E&E calls Biden’s plan “an opening salvo in a likely lengthy battle with Congress to get his ambitious spending and policy goals enacted.”

Meanwhile, one of the few areas where U.S. legislators are showing any bipartisan spirit may be bad news on the climate and energy file, after the Senate Energy and Public Works Committee adopted a 450-page surface transportation funding bill with provisions that weaken the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).

“The rollbacks excuse certain categories of infrastructure projects from the environmental review process, establish time and page limits on environmental reviews, and expand a program that gives individual states authority over reviews,” Grist wrote last week. “Taken separately, the provisions seem to only tweak NEPA, but critics say they are part of a long-term effort by Republicans to whittle away at the law’s authority and could have significant impacts on communities across the country.”

“It’s making Swiss cheese of the NEPA statute by putting an increasing number of holes in it,” said Natural Resources Defense Council Senior Policy Advisor Deron Lovaas.”



in Auto & Alternative Vehicles, Carbon Levels & Measurement, Clean Electricity Grid, Climate & Society, Community Climate Finance, Demand & Distribution, Ending Emissions, Energy Politics, Jurisdictions, United States

The latest climate news and analysis, direct to your inbox

Subscribe

Related Posts

sunrise windmill
International Agencies & Studies

Renewables ‘Set to Soar’ with 440 GW of New Installations in 2023: IEA

June 4, 2023
120
Pixabay
Solar

Greek Industrial Giant Announces 1.4-GW Alberta Solar Farm, Canada’s Biggest

June 4, 2023
106
Oregon Department of Transportation/flickr
Cities & Communities

Shift to Remote Work Cuts Commutes, Frees Downtown Space for Affordable Housing

June 4, 2023
71

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Trending Stories

/MaxPixels

‘Substantial Damage’, No Injuries as Freight Train Hits Wind Turbine Blade

May 25, 2022
14.6k
Natural Resources Canada

2.7M Hectares Lost, Nova Scotia at Ground Zero in ‘Unprecedented’ Early Wildfire Season

June 4, 2023
141
sunrise windmill

Renewables ‘Set to Soar’ with 440 GW of New Installations in 2023: IEA

June 4, 2023
120
Pixabay

Greek Industrial Giant Announces 1.4-GW Alberta Solar Farm, Canada’s Biggest

June 4, 2023
106
Inspiration 4 Photos/flickr

Cooling Upper Atmosphere Has Scientists ‘Very Worried’

May 23, 2023
498
Equinor

Is Equinor’s Bay du Nord ‘Delay’ a Cancellation in Slow Motion?

June 1, 2023
860

Recent Posts

Oregon Department of Transportation/flickr

Shift to Remote Work Cuts Commutes, Frees Downtown Space for Affordable Housing

June 4, 2023
71
Clairewych/Pixabay

Demand Surges for Giant Heat Pumps as Europe Turns to District Heating

June 4, 2023
81
nicolasdebraypointcom/pixabay

Factor Gender into Transportation Planning, IISD Analyst Urges Policy-Makers

June 4, 2023
33
moerschy / Pixabay

Federal Climate Plans Must Embrace Community-Driven Resilience

June 4, 2023
48
debannja/Pixabay

Austin, Texas Council Committee Backs Fossil Non-Proliferation Treaty

June 4, 2023
79
Ottawa Renewable Energy Co-op/Facebook

‘Hinge Moment’ for Humanity Demands ‘YIMBY’ Mentality: McKibben

June 1, 2023
75
Next Post
Tony Webster/Flickr

$16 Billion Per Year from Rich Countries Drives ‘Global Dash for Gas’

The Energy Mix - The climate news you need

Copyright 2023 © Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy and Copyright
  • Cookie Policy

Proudly partnering with…

scf_withtagline
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}