After facing opposition from Vermont’s U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, as well as an array of other lawmakers and interest groups, an energy permitting bill spearheaded by West Virginia’s U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin has been removed from Congress’ latest resolution to temporarily fund the federal government.
Manchin’s bill would have streamlined the permitting process for domestic energy projects, including oil and gas pipelines and other fossil fuel infrastructure. It was attached to the funding package as part of a “side deal” negotiated earlier this year between the moderate West Virginia Democrat and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., in order to win Manchin’s support for the Inflation Reduction Act, which was signed into law in August.
On Tuesday, Manchin withdrew his provision, and the Senate voted to proceed with the government funding resolution.
Sanders and Manchin have publicly sparred for months, as Manchin has blocked major Democratic priorities from passing while the party holds a razor-thin majority in the Senate.
But this time, it was the Vermont independent who threatened to vote ‘no’ on the budget resolution if Manchin’s bill were attached. If the stopgap funding measure is not passed by Friday, the federal government would shut down.
Even before the text of Manchin’s bill was released, Sanders publicly decried it, citing the nature of the backroom deal and the bill’s potential environmental impacts. Included was congressional approval of the 303-mile-long Mountain Valley Pipeline, a natural gas pipeline planned to stretch from West Virginia to Virginia, and potentially to North Carolina.
“Really, at a time when climate change is threatening the very existence of our planet, why would anybody be talking about substantially increasing carbon emissions and expanding fossil fuel production in the United States?” Sanders said in a 20-minute floor speech earlier this month.
In addition to Sanders, 72 U.S. House members this month signed a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., urging them to remove the permit language. Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt., the state’s lone member of the U.S. House, did not sign the letter.
From the Senate’s Democratic caucus, Virginia’s U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine also pledged to vote against Manchin’s bill, citing his opposition to the Mountain Valley Pipeline.
But with only two members of the Democratic caucus pledging ‘no’ votes, the final death blow to Manchin’s bill appeared to be opposition from Senate Republicans. According to the Guardian, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., urged his 50-member caucus to oppose Manchin’s bill, despite Republicans’ long-held calls for permitting reform.
In an interview with Fox News, Manchin said he never expected buy-in from “Bernie and some of the extreme far-left.” But he appeared surprised by Republicans’ slight.
“What I didn’t expect is that Mitch McConnell and my Republican friends would be signing up with Bernie or trying to get the same outcome by not passing permitting reform,” Manchin said.
U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., chairs the Senate’s powerful Appropriations Committee, which oversaw the drafting of the budget resolution. In a written statement Tuesday afternoon, he said he was “disappointed that unrelated permitting reform was attached to this bill.”
“This is a controversial matter that should be debated on its own merits,” Leahy said. “However, with four days left in the fiscal year, we cannot risk a government shutdown; we must work to advance this bill.”
On Tuesday evening, the Senate voted 72-23 to advance a “shell for a continuing resolution to keep the government open until Dec. 16 and avoid a needless government shutdown,” Schumer said on the floor Wednesday morning.
“As my colleagues know, government funding runs out Friday at midnight, whereupon a partial shutdown would begin if we do not act,” Schumer continued. “We must work fast to finish the process on the floor, send a (continuing resolution) to the House, then send it to the president’s desk before the clock runs out.”
On Tuesday evening, Sanders celebrated the Manchin bill’s defeat, calling it “a victory for the survival of the planet and a major loss for the fossil fuel industry.”
“I want to congratulate the more than 650 environmental groups and community organizations who made clear that, in the midst of the horrific climate crisis that we face, the last thing we need is a side deal which would build more pipelines and fossil fuel projects that would have substantially increased carbon emissions,” Sanders said in a written statement.
“The United States and the rest of the world must move away from our dependence on authoritarian regimes, like those in Russia and Saudi Arabia, for our energy,” he continued. “We must now go forward in creating millions of new jobs by transforming our energy system away from fossil fuel toward energy efficiency and sustainable energy.”