Yesterday one man-Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV)-saved the American economy from a body blow.
That's not how President Joe Biden, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), longtime climate crusader Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Green activists, and the mainstream media see it. But it's true.
After months of negotiations, Manchin concluded that he could not support a budget reconciliation bill, a scaled-down version of last year's "Build Back Better" plan, that included climate and "clean energy" provisions. By doing so, he broke ranks, as he has done many times in the past, with President Biden and the rest of Democratic Party leadership. The 50/50 split between Republicans and Democrats in the Senate makes it so that if just one Democrat peals off, as Manchin did, a partisan bill cannot pass.
Bloomberg News reported that the Democrats' plan included "hundreds of billions in spending on measures designed to fight climate change, including tax breaks for renewable energy, electric vehicles and other clean power sources."
Second Time Around
But just as, in 2010, when the Democrats held the White House and both houses of Congress, they couldn't get the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill through Congress, so this time they failed, too.
That's good news for Americans, but it grieves and angers leading Democrats.
Sen. Edward Markey (D-MA), who has fought for years for legislation to curb climate change, responded, "Rage keeps me from tears."
John Podesta, former senior advisor to President Barack Obama and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and founder of the far-Left Center for American Progress, said, "It seems odd that Manchin would choose as his legacy to be the one man who single-handedly doomed humanity."
Not that the actual scientific reports from the United Nations' Intergovernmental on Climate Change support the idea that humanity is doomed by whatever climate change the Biden plan would have prevented had it passed-or indeed any climate change. Its reports actually forecast that humanity will be much better off at the end of this century regardless which of all the possible climate-change paths we follow. Why? Because the direct benefits of fossil fuels, cement making, and livestock farming-the primary sources of carbon dioxide emissions-far outweigh the costs of any climate-related changes they might, or might not, bring with them.
Manchin's firm stance yesterday is in keeping with his past actions. Earlier he killed a plan to force power plants to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Next, he stopped a plan touted to make electric vehicles more affordable. Then he refused to support incentives for wind and solar power. Finally, last year he squelched the $150 billion "Clean Electricity Performance Program," which would have paid companies using more than 4 percent "clean" (aka, non-fossil fuel) energy and fined companies that didn't.
Despite how angry it makes his Democratic colleagues, Manchin's action yesterday should be viewed by sane Americans as icing on the cake.
When Biden ran for President in 2020, his climate action plan promised to "decarbonize the power sector by 2035 and halve emissions by 2030," culminating in net-zero CO2 emissions by 2050. The costs of such an ambitious program would have mounted to trillions of dollars every year.
What's the Use of Climate Policy?
What most people don't realize is that achieving those goals would have reduced global average temperature in the year 2100 by no more than a tiny fraction of 1°C, an amount that can't even be measured with confidence and would have no impact on ecosystems or human wellbeing.
The fact that global warming science says that the warming would be mostly toward the poles, in winter, and at night, i.e., raising the coldest temperatures but with little effect on higher temperatures, means the actual impacts of the warming itself could be more beneficial than harmful. Add to that the fact that increased atmospheric carbon dioxide makes all plants grow better, raising crop yields, making food more affordable, and curbing species loss, and there's little real rationale for any policies to reduce emissions.
Whitehouse, whom E&E Daily calls "perhaps the Senate's top climate hawk," responded to Manchin's defeat of the climate and energy portions of the reconciliation bill, "Free at last. Let's roll. Do it all and start it now. With legislative climate options now closed, it's now time for executive Beast Mode."
SCOTUS Bars the Door
But Whitehouse and other climate hawks are bound to be disappointed on that front, too. The Supreme Court ruled on June 30 in West Virginia v. EPA that the Clean Air Act, the only legislation on which the federal Environmental Protection Agency could pretend to build its regulations of carbon dioxide emissions actually doesn't empower such regulations.
Any new, similar actions the Administration might in what Whitehouse curiously called "executive Beast Mode" would likely face the same fate. By its ruling, the Supreme Court essentially said, "Any rules to combat climate change are going to have to come from the people's elected representatives, not from unaccountable, deep state-embedded bureaucrats."
That's good news for people who believe in government by consent of the governed, but it's bad news for Greens and Democrats.
"With Republicans favored to take back at least one chamber in this year's midterms, it could mean climate advocates will have to wait years to advance the kind of large-scale, emissions-slashing policies that were being negotiated as part of the reconciliation package," opined E&E News. The article went on to call it "a massive setback for Democrats politically and a blow to the nation's climate goals."
Reality Bites
Rising inflation-the Consumer Price Index in June being 9.1 percent higher than a year before-driven in large part by skyrocketing gasoline, diesel, and natural gas prices clearly played a part in the Democrats' failure to pass their climate legislation. Americans are reeling from the blows of higher prices not only for energy but also for food and pretty much everything else.
Biden has blamed the rising fuel prices on Russia's war against Ukraine. But while that has been a contributor over the past five months, much of the increase occurred before Russia attacked. That earlier rise and the inability of America's oil and gas sectors to push prices back down by increasing production are due almost wholly to climate-related Democratic policies preventing exploration, drilling, mining, transporting, and refining.
Among other reasons Manchin offers for opposing the plan is his concern about its emphasis on accelerating the replacement of internal-combustion vehicles with electric vehicles (EV). That's a problem, he says, because the United States depends heavily on other nations, especially China, for lithium, cobalt, and other minerals critical to the production of EV batteries.
Manchin spokesman Sam Runyon explained in a prepared statement, "Political headlines are of no value to the millions of Americans struggling to afford groceries and gas as inflation soars to 9.1 percent. Senator Manchin believes it's time for leaders to put political agendas aside, reevaluate and adjust to the economic realities the country faces to avoid taking steps that add fuel to the inflation fire."
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E. Calvin Beisner, Ph.D., is President of The Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation, a nonprofit Christian think tank of scientists, economists, theologians, and religious leaders committed to Biblical earth stewardship, economic development for the poor, and the gospel of Jesus Christ.