Manchin is the most powerful person in Congress

With 2021 Election Day coming and going with Democrats and progressives having an underwhelming performance, the currently Democratic-led government can turn their attention back to helping the American people and the future of the planet by finishing up the reconciliation bill (Build Back Better Act).  Biden was not able to cruise into the COP26 international climate conference this week with swag, because Democratic Senator Joe Manchin single-handedly decimated the portion of Biden's bill that would've finally put the United States' money where their mouth is.  The $3.5 trillion proposal is now down to $1.75 trillion, and the central part of Biden's climate agenda, a program to quickly replace the US' coal and gas power plants with wind, solar, and nuclear energy, is now scratched by Manchin.  The Senator emphasized that the program might damage his state's economy but leaves out the economic cost of inaction on climate change for West Virginia as the state is more exposed to flood damage than any other state in the US, according to data released a few weeks ago. Manchin also profits personally from polluting industries as he owns stock valued at between $1 million and $5 million in a coal brokerage firm that he founded in 1988 and last year he made nearly half a million dollars in dividends from that stock, according to his Senate financial disclosure report.

This was a critical juncture in the battle against climate change because the United States is the second biggest polluter currently (and all time #1 biggest) and the party that, in general, wants to take action against climate change has control over both the legislative and the executive branch.  The Republicans will most likely take one or both houses of Congress back next year in the mid-terms and maybe the Democrats won't have budget reconciliation legislative power like this for another decade or even longer, nobody knows.  And scientists are urging immediate action by governments to avoid the most catastrophic effects of climate change.  This year's ecological crises, like the droughts, floods, wildfires, and heatwaves should prove to all of us that climate change is already here and it's only going to get far worse before it gets any better, and in order to make it better we need concrete legislation by the government to accelerate the economy's switch away from carbon-intensive sources.  But the legislation will only go as far as the most conservative Democrat in the Senate, because the Democrats have a 51-50 majority so they need every single Democratic voter to agree on something.  That "most conservative Democrat" happens to be Joe Manchin, especially when it comes to climate legislation.

Biden had to quickly come up with a Plan B: tax credits, regulation and state action.  Regulation could work but it can also be shut down by the conservative Supreme Court and would likely be rolled back by a future Republican president. State action sounds like an optional thing for each state. How does Biden persuade a red state to do something that he wants?  I'm skeptical.  While I would've preferred all of the original investments in climate mitigation, the tax credits for clean energy programs is a $300 billion bucket, and overall the legislative framework still includes $555 billion for clean energy and climate change provisions.  The beggar in me is still happy that so much is still on the table.  Not to mention all of the other great investments in the American people within the Build Back Better Act, such as $400 billion for childcare and preschools.  And there is also the separate physical infrastructure bill (Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act) which contains $7.5 billion to build a national network of electric vehicle chargers and $73 billion in power infrastructure and clean energy transmission.  Something is better than nothing, and these investments are all highly significant.

We need more than 51 Senators to care about climate change in order to pass the legislation we truly need, so that no one person has all the negotiating power that Manchin has had.  I think that the majority of Americans want the US to do more in the battle against climate change, but the politics almost always gets in the way.