Clean energy push is under threat

Stripped version of $3.5 trillion budget might slash plans for fossil-fuel shift

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden’s ambitious plans to speed the U.S. economy’s shift to clean energy are under threat, as Democratic leaders in the House and Senate try to piece together a stripped-down version of a $3.5 trillion spending package.

With a one-vote edge in the Senate, and no Republican support, Democrats can’t afford any defections if they are to pass the budget bill, a cornerstone of President Joe Biden’s agenda. But Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia

continues to resist plans for a clean electricity program that would pay power companies to shift from fossil fuels, making it unclear whether the president’s climate plans can move ahead as written.

“It’s absolutely a point of tension and whether the Democrats can get (the necessary votes) remains to be seen,” said Brad Townsend, vice president for policy and outreach at the Center

for Climate and Energy Solutions, a think tank advocating for climate action. “The way it’s going, it does seem like (the Clean Electricity Payment Program) would likely include some credit for natural gas.”

In recent television appearances, Manchin has questioned the need for the federal government to pay power companies billions of dollars a year to switch to clean energy when emissions are already coming down.

“The transition is happening,” he told CNN last month. “Now they’re wanting to pay companies to do what they’re already doing,”

Natural gas is a booming business in Manchin’s home state, and the thinking among some Democratic strategists is that adjusting the clean power program to include natural gas — which

produces close to half the carbon emissions of coal — could win Manchin over.

In a memo to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer this summer, Manchin said his support would require not only that he control the writing of the clean power program through his chairmanship of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, but also that any extension of clean energy tax credits would mean extending credits that support oil and gas drilling.

Democratic leaders in the House and Senate are fighting to keep progressives on board as they whittle the spending package between $1.8 and $2.2 trillion to satisfy moderates like Manchin and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona. Progressives like Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, meanwhile, are fighting to retain funding for expensive provisions like an expanded child tax credit and subsidized daycare.

“There will be a certain number of accommodations that will be necessary to secure Senate votes so (Democratic) leaders will not have complete freedom with regard to what can be thrown overboard,” Tim Urban, a Washington tax attorney, said in an email.

Schumer has set a target date of Oct. 31 to pass a budget bill, along with a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill agreed to this summer by Republicans and Democrats.

In comparison to highprice items like health care and education, clean energy is a relatively cheap portion of Democrats’ budget, adding up to $273 billion under the version released by the House Ways and Means committee in September.

But tax credits in the budget package supporting electric vehicles and nuclear power plants, technologies that are set to receive funding under the infrastructure bill, could be reduced to get the budget below $2.2 trillion, according to a memo Tuesday from the consulting firm Clearview Energy Partners.

“For clean energy,” the consultants said, “downsizing seems more likely than deletion,”

With scientists’ warning that drastic emissions reductions are necessary to avoid the worst consequences of climate change, any effort to delay or reduce clean energy funding poses the risk of environmental catastrophe decades from now.

And with Biden promising to get the nation on the path to net zero emissions by mid-century, environmentalists are showing little inclination to accept a watered-down policy.

“A lot of promises have been made,” said Townsend. “There’s concern if you cut too much of the climate piece of the budget, you’re never going to hit the (emissions reduction targets).”