US Democrats climate, energy, tax Bill clears initial Senate hurdle

WASHINGTON DC: US Democrats pushed their election-year economic bill toward Senate approval early on Sunday, starting the sprawling collection of President Joe Biden's priorities on climate, energy, health and taxes on a pathway that the party hopes will end in final congressional passage by the end of this week.

The evenly divided Senate voted on Saturday to begin debating the legislation 51-50, with Vice President Kamala Harris breaking the tie and overcoming unanimous Republican opposition. A dwindled version of earlier multitrillion-dollar measures that Democrats failed to advance, the package has become a partisan battleground over inflation, gasoline prices and other issues that polls show are driving voters.

The House, where Democrats have a slender majority, could give the legislation final approval next Friday.

The time is now to move forward with a big, bold package for the American people, said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-NY.

This historic bill will reduce inflation, lower costs, fight climate change. It's time to move this nation forward.

Republicans said the measure would damage the economy and make it harder for people to cope with sky-high inflation. They said the bill's business taxes would hurt job creation and force prices upward and urged voters to remember that in November.

The best way to stop this tax and spend inflationary madness is to fire some of the 50 so they can't keep doing this to your family, said South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, top Republican on the Senate Budget Committee.

Nonpartisan analysts have said the legislation, which Democrats have named the Inflation Reduction Act, would have a minor impact on the nation's worst inflation bout in four decades. Even so, it would take aim at issues the party has longed to address for years including global warming, pharmaceutical costs and taxing immense corporations.

Before reaching final passage, senators plodded through a nonstop pile of amendments called a vote-a-rama that seemed certain to last hours.

In early votes, the chamber rejected an effort by progressive Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., to require Medicare to pay the same lower prescription drug prices paid by the Department of Veterans Affairs.

The House, where Democrats have a slender majority, could give the legislation final approval next Friday