(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .



The Other Shoe Drops: What Joe Manchin is getting from the Inflation Reduction Act [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags']

Date: 2022-08-06

Color me Not Impressed

Okay, time to rain on the parade and try to help quell the mounting hysteria. Sorry.

When I heard that Joe Manchin had agreed to the somewhat improbably titled Inflation Reduction Act, otherwise commonly characterized as "the climate change bill," I thought immediately about Manchin's past turnabouts and betrayals of the rest of the Democrats in the Senate regarding this or that proposed progressive legislation. I thought, "But the vote hasn't been taken yet, and Manchin could still say 'No' at the eleventh hour and 59th minute (and after all, what about Sinema?)," so I continued to refuse to succumb to the giddy elation constantly expressed by almost everyone else.

Well, evidently Manchin's cooperative assent is on track to be real. And I say "on track" because the vote still hasn't happened — though that doesn't seem to dampen anyone's enthusiasm in crowing about this legislation. But why did Manchin agree?

Because Joe Manchin is getting a natural gas pipeline greenlighted for West Virginia. Yes, you read that right. He’s agreed to massive legislation including major steps to purportedly combat climate change as a nation, in exchange for a project all but guaranteed to contribute to climate change. Oh, but climate change just in West Virginia? Like in the old Greyhound buses where smoking was "confined" (Greyhound's terminology) to the last two rows of seats? I didn't realize climate change could be so neatly contained.

Enough of my snark. Here's a link to the ProPublica article where I read about this: https://www.propublica.org/article/manchin-gas-pipeline-climate-change-bill?utm_source=sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=dailynewsletter&utm_content=feature

And here's the title and header to ProPublica’s article:

"Joe Manchin’s Price for Supporting the Climate Change Bill — A Natural Gas Pipeline in His Home State.

To accommodate the West Virginia senator, Democratic leadership agreed to legislation streamlining permits for the often-stalled Mountain Valley Pipeline and removing jurisdiction from a court that keeps ruling against the project."

In other words, not only did Manchin get this pipeline allowed, but he also took away the power of the people who have been protesting the pipeline for years for environmental reasons, as well as the jurisdiction of the court that has repeatedly ruled that the proposed project violated the law. This will thus be an essentially unregulated project — though doubtless the various permitting agencies will help the company "meet" its legal requirements (by "adjusting" the requirements?). However, there is just no way to progressively dress up a

"303-mile, two-state pipeline fostering continued use of fossil fuels."

I am truly torn. Do I want to ask my Democratic and relatively progressive Senators to vote No on the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 — counting on a Democratic Senate takeover in November and a consequent Sinemanchin irrelevancy to get it done right later? After all, one of my Senators once spoke vociferously against a LNG terminal* on Oregon's coast, so why should a natural gas pipeline in West Virginia be any different? Or do I want to take what I can get now (assuming that Sinemanchin actually vote Yes) and count on some as yet undetermined factors (i.e., “miracle”) to mitigate the effects of a brand new fossil fuel pipeline?

So, sorry, still no praises from this corner for this legislation or for Manchin's agreement to it. As I see it, he's still an obstructive a**hole. And Biden and Schumer should be ashamed for agreeing to this and keeping it secret.

*Which is no longer happening.

[END]
---
[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/8/6/2114945/-The-Other-Shoe-Drops-What-Joe-Manchin-is-getting-from-the-Inflation-Reduction-Act

Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.

via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/

You are viewing proxied material from magical.fish. The copyright of proxied material belongs to its original authors. Any comments or complaints in relation to proxied material should be directed to the original authors of the content concerned. Please see the disclaimer for more details.