Manchin Side Deal Threatens Government Funding Bill
Manchin Side Deal Threatens Government Funding Bill
September 13, 2022 at 10:53 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard 17 Comments
https://politicalwire.com/2022/09/13/manchin-side-deal-threatens-government-funding-bill/
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CNN: “As he vowed to support the sweeping health care and energy bill this summer, Manchin won assurances from top Democrats, including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, to advance a plan that would expedite the permitting and environmental review process for energy projects – including a major pipeline that would cross through his state of West Virginia. Schumer has vowed to include the White House-backed deal in legislation to keep government agencies afloat beyond September 30.”
“But an unlikely alliance is forming between progressives alarmed at the deal’s potential environmental impact and Senate Republicans still livid that Manchin cast the vote that ensured the health care and energy bill’s enactment into law. Now the GOP is in no mood to give Manchin a win he would undoubtedly tout ahead of a difficult 2024 reelection bid, as they criticize the proposed deal as too meager.”
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= new reply since forum marked as read
(American Petroleum Institute). It dramatically undermines the just passed clime bill (IRA of 2022).
It needs to be re-written, and substantially narrowed down.
In an impassioned call to allies in the national climate movement, a community organizer explains: “We in Appalachia are done with being a sacrifice zone.”
https://www.thenation.com/article/activism/manchin-appalachia-inflation-reduction-act/
ELLISTON, VA.—Appalachia won’t be thrown under the bus in a side deal to climate legislation. That’s why we’re going to the capital next week, for the “Appalachian Resistance Comes to DC” rally, on September 8. Our message: We’re done with being a sacrifice zone. If you care about climate, you’ve got to care about us too. It’s the right thing to do. And it’s also the only way we can get better climate policies going forward. The wheelers and dealers who negotiated the Inflation Reduction Act need to work with those of us on the ground who lead this fight, rather than against us.
The side deal proposed by Senator Joe Manchin includes the undermining of laws that protect us from the fossil fuel industry. Manchin also wants Congress to fast-track his pet project, the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP). Half-completed, the pipeline has been stopped in its tracks by effective mobilization on the ground and in the courts. I have played a small part in this. I am a single mother and grandmother. I clean houses during the day and a local doctor’s office at night. I spend every spare moment resisting the pipeline because it would carry fracked gas close to me and my neighbors in Montgomery County, Va., endangering our community even though the gas is not meant for us.
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The side deal would set new two-year limits, or maximum timelines, for environmental reviews for “major” projects, the summary says. It would also aim to streamline the government processes for deciding approvals for energy projects by centralizing decision-making with one lead agency, the summary adds. The bill would also attempt to clear the way for the approval of the Mountain Valley Pipeline, which would transport Appalachian shale gas about 300 miles from West Virginia to Virginia. This pipeline is a key priority of Manchin’s.
Other provisions would limit legal challenges to energy projects and give the Energy Department more authority to approve electric transmission lines that are deemed to be “in the national interest,” according to the document. One provision in the agreement could make it harder for government agencies to deny new approvals based on certain environmental impacts that are not directly caused by the project itself, said Sean Marotta, a partner at the Hogan Lovells law firm who represents pipeline companies.
https://prospect.org/environment/manchin-permitting-deal-teeters-despite-gas-industry-support/
https://aboutblaw.com/4ht
Link to tweet
This draft of Manchin's side deal on permitting is stamped: "Draft - API" (American Petroleum Institute).
(In case you were wondering who is calling the shots here)
https://aboutblaw.com/4iu
much more at that pdf link
