By Paul Homewood
For those who don’t follow events from across the pond, there is very good news:
Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., declared Sunday that after months of negotiations he has determined that there is no way he can support the massive social spending bill known as the Build Back Better Act (BBB).
Speaking with “Fox News Sunday,” Manchin said that he has spoken with President Biden, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., but could not reach an agreement on the legislation.
“I’ve done everything humanly possible,” Manchin said, talking about how hard he has worked to try to reach an acceptable compromise on the bill.
To briefly explain, Joe Manchin is the Democrat Senator for West Virginia, heart of coal mining country. In a number of ways, he is very much like old Labour in the UK, someone who cares about the interests of his working class constituents and nothing for the woke, far left obsessions of the metropolitan elite.
As the Senate is split 50/50, with the deciding vote going to VP Kamala Harris, Manchin’s vote for BBB is crucial to get the Act passed. But Manchin has pulled the plug for two reasons:
- The anti fossil fuel provisions
- The mammoth cost, estimated at $5 trillion, at a time when inflation is already running at 7%, far above UK levels.
Biden had initially included in his Infrastructure Bill (passed in October) several items to tackle climate change, including:
- $313 billion (over 10 yrs) for energy efficiency schemes
- $174 billion to subsidise electric cars and infrastructure.
These were dropped in order to get the bill passed.
But Biden’s main climate plank was to be included in his BBB – the Clean Electricity Program. This was designed to subsidise utilities which increased renewable capacity, whilst penalising ones which did not. Largely because of Joe Manchin’s obduracy, this also had to be dropped from BBB.
There is no mention either of a carbon tax, or any action to reduce methane emissions, something which Dementia Joe campaigned for at COP26.
So what was left of Biden’s climate agenda in BBB?
- Subsidies for homeowners to fit solar panels etc..
- A Clean Energy program, to fund port electrification, electric buses and so on.
- Creation of a new Civilian Climate Corps, a 300,000 strong of “diverse people who look like America”!
In other words, bugger all. Yet even this bag of nonsense is not going to be passed now.
The US Pledge at COP26 centred around:
- 100% carbon free electricity by 2035
- Reducing emissions by 50 to 52% from 2005 levels by 2030. This effectively means a cut of 40% from today’s levels:
His failure to legislate any of his substantive program to achieve these objectives means that they are all just pie in the sky. Wishful thinking is one thing. Actually making it happen is another.
Is there any prospect of Biden getting his BBB enacted next year? Word from America suggests not.
Quite clearly, Joe Manchin, to his credit, has refused to fall for Biden’s attempts to manipulate the costs, underestimating them by two thirds. Anything remotely acceptable to him will be anathema to the far left, who are pulling Dementia’s strings.
There is also the slight problem of next year’s Mid Term Elections, which are increasingly looking like a disaster zone for the Democrats, who will therefore shy away from further unpopular actions in Congress.
With an almost certain Republican majority in Congress after next November, we can safely assume that Joe’s climate plan is dead in the water.
Whether the idiots in Europe will have the courage to work this out and act accordingly remains to be seen.
via NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
December 19, 2021
You must be logged in to post a comment.