Joe Biden’s plans to cut US greenhouse gas emissions lay with a broken back just a few weeks ago. But to the great surprise of many, the USA can now still get a historic climate package in place. The reason is an unexpected U-turn from Joe Manchin, the powerful senator from the coal state of West Virginia. And last minute support from Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema. The aim of the package “Inflation Reduction Act” is, as the name suggests, to bring down inflation in the USA. It deals with everything from medicine prices to business taxes. But it also contains 369 billion dollars for a number of major climate measures. Together, this could cut emissions in the US by 40 percent by 2030, according to the Democrats. Several analysts are now behind this estimate, after going through the bill, writes The Atlantic. Among the measures we find: Tax benefits for the purchase of electric cars Tax benefits for the production of solar panels, wind turbine ties and batteries A new tax on emissions of the strong greenhouse gas methane Investment in new technology such as carbon capture and storage – This is good climate news, says Professor Guri Bang at NMBU and expert on US climate policy. If it is adopted, it will be the most comprehensive climate legislation at the national level in the US ever, she says. – Biden has promised that the US will cut emissions sharply. Without this victory, it would have been very difficult. This will take them a long way, she adds. The package of measures is therefore not quite on target. It still needs to be voted on in the Senate and the House of Representatives. This will probably happen on Friday 12 August, when Congress’ elected representatives are called in to vote. That’s what The New York Times writes. But there is broad agreement that the biggest obstacles are out of the way. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer hopes to start the debate in the Senate this weekend. Photo: Drew Angerer / AFP Powerful Manchin The Senate is deeply divided between 50 Democrats and 50 Republicans. With Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democrats have a narrow majority. The Republicans are strongly critical of the package of measures. Senator Mitch McConnell reacted by accusing the Democrats of wanting to “kill many thousands of American jobs”. It is not expected that any of them will vote in favor. Thus, the Democrats are dependent on all their senators voting together. This situation has made Joe Manchin, one of the most conservative Democrats, a powerful man. It was Manchin who in February overturned Biden’s ambitious crisis package, which contained NOK 5,000 billion for climate measures. The reason was fear of increased national debt and high inflation. Since then, Biden has tried to salvage the scraps of his climate policy with scaled-down proposals. Just three weeks ago, Manchin said he couldn’t agree to this either. But negotiations continued quietly behind closed doors, between Manchin and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. Last week, the independent observers in the United States surprised themselves with the fact that they had reached an agreement. “This plan will allow us to decarbonize while ensuring that American energy is affordable, reliable, clean and secure,” Manchin said. Sinema has announced that she will join the rest of the Democratic senators. Photo: Drew Angerer / AFP Several compromises were needed for Manchin to turn around, US media reports. He was promised reforms to make it faster to grant permits to develop fossil energy, reports Reuters. This could, among other things, affect the development of a gas pipeline in West Virginia, writes the New York Times. The authorities must also make more state-owned land available for oil exploration. The last piece in the puzzle was Kyrsten Sinema. The Arizona senator is also a more conservative Democrat and was seen as another possible brake. But Sinema announced on Friday that she is ready to proceed with the bill. A long way from Biden’s original plans The “Inflation Reduction Act” is a long way from the ambitious climate plans Biden brought with him when he became president. It has therefore received criticism from some climate groups for not going far enough. The US’s official climate goal is to cut emissions by 50 percent by 2030. There are also those who are critical that the plan could end up opening up more fossil fuel projects in order to reach an agreement with Manchin. – The price for Manchin’s vote looks more and more like a wish list for oil and gas, says Jean Su from the Center for Biological Diversity to Reuters. Joe Biden has had to scale back his climate plans. Now he hopes to get new legislation in place before the by-elections in November. Photo: Anna Moneymaker / AFP Guri Bang nevertheless believes that if the law passes, it is a step forward for American climate policy. It gives the US credibility around the world that it can actually implement the cuts it has promised. In addition, it can provide important stability, she believes. – It is more difficult to remove a law than a presidential order. It provides stability and predictability for industry when they have to make investments. It will also provide stability to actually get climate measures implemented, and thus avoid the situation that has characterized climate policy in the last decade, where adopted measures were canceled before they could be implemented, says Bang.
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Senator surprise can lead to historic climate agreement – news Urix – Foreign news and documentaries
