Lots of ink has been spilled on the political stakes of the infrastructure fight on Capitol Hill—and not for nothing. The bills are the centerpiece of Joe Biden’s domestic agenda, and ferrying them through the Democrats’ narrow majorities could have major implications for his party in 2022 and 2024. But less has been said about the massive stakes the showdown has for the environment: With time running out to address the worsening climate crisis, and a science-denying GOP angling to take Congress next year, the legislation may be the country’s best chance for a while to mitigate global warming. “Each time you let these opportunities slip through your fingers, you’re passing a much harder problem on to the next generation,” climate scientist Kim Cobb told the New York Times on Sunday. “It’s a very hard thing to swallow that we are relegating children born today and not yet born to a future of dangerous climate impacts.”
As the Times notes, the bills—a more traditional infrastructure plan with bipartisan support in the Senate, and a broader social infrastructure plan out of the House that Democrats hope to pass through reconciliation—“contain what would be the most significant climate action ever taken by the United States.” Such measures are desperately needed: A United Nations report released in August found that some impacts of climate change have become irreversible, but that rapid, large-scale action could prevent an even worse future. The U.S., which has contributed more to climate change than any other nation, has an outsize role to play in mitigating the crisis. But Republicans, who could be set for gains in next year’s midterms, have given little cause to expect that they are willing or able to meet that responsibility. The party had already been a home for climate change deniers for years, even before Donald Trump came along and made reckless denial of science and basic facts a core part of the GOP’s identity.
As such, Democrats have to act now on the bills, which would shift the U.S. toward green energy and help safeguard communities from climate disaster. But the bills have been stuck in a legislative impasse amid an intra-party dispute: Conservatives Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema have objected to the $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill and called for the Senate legislation to be passed first. But many Democrats, led by House progressives, fear that doing so would give Manchin and Sinema little incentive to negotiate with them, and say they won’t advance the bipartisan bill without a commitment on reconciliation. “We cannot afford to increase carbon or just fossil fuel emissions at this time,” Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said on Face the Nation Sunday. “That is simply the science. That is not something we can kick down the line.” Representative Pramila Jayapal has said that Democrats will “do what we need to do to make sure we get everybody on board,” even if that means bringing down the reconciliation bill’s price tag. But Manchin and Sinema have been pretty stubborn so far — at least in public — and it’s unclear when, if, or how a deal will come together.
If getting even a scaled-back version of the bill to Biden’s desk could be a major boost to the fight against climate change, failure to do so would have a major cost, both for the U.S. and the rest of the world. As a new report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Centers for Environmental Information outlined this week, this year is shaping up to be one of the most expensive on record for climate disasters in America, with the country suffering upwards of $100.4 billion in damages in 2021 alone. Manchin and Sinema, like Republicans, have balked at the Biden legislation’s price tag. But the price of doing nothing to counteract climate change is far greater over time. And then, of course, there’s the human toll, which was detailed in another sobering report released this week by the journal Nature Climate Change. According to that study, 85% of the world’s population has been impacted by weather events that have been made worse by climate change.
This is, as Biden put it last month, a “code red” for the planet. “They’ve been warning us the extreme weather would get more extreme over the decade,” he said after Hurricane Ida, “and we’re living it in real time now.” And with only one party serious about doing anything about it, it’s crucial they act while they have the chance.
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