Dems find compromise after clash
Manchin: Reform energy permitting, or ‘there is no bill’
WASHINGTON — Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who had been the chief Democratic holdout on a climate, health, energy and tax increase package that is the backbone of his party’s agenda, said Thursday that he had relented and agreed to sign on after concluding that it would help combat inflation, as top Democrats toiled to rally support to quickly pass the measure.
President Joe Biden declared his support Thursday for the “historic” inflation-fighting agreement, saying the $739 billion bill, which had long eluded the White House and seemed all but lost, will be a “godsend” for American families.
He acknowledged the final product was a compromise, but was upbeat that it would win support in Congress.
“My plea is: Put politics aside. Get it done,” Biden said. “We should pass this.”
Biden received more good news for his agenda Thursday when the House passed a $280 billion package to boost the semiconductor industry and scientific research in a bid to create more high-tech jobs in the United States and help it better compete with international rivals, namely China.
The House approved the bill by a sold 243-187 margin, sending the measure to Biden to be signed into law and providing the White House with a major domestic policy victory. Twenty-four Republicans
voted for the legislation.
As for the agreement announced late Wednesday, Manchin said the surprise compromise began taking shape only days after he and Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., the majority leader, had a bitter break during intense negotiations on the plan, when the West Virginian informed Schumer that he could not support a package with new climate spending or tax proposals this summer amid skyrocketing inflation.
“You know how our tempers get a little bit ahead of us at times,” Manchin, who is isolating after testing
positive for COVID19 this week, told reporters during a virtual news conference.
Schumer, he said, had “turned the dogs loose” on him two weeks ago after he said he could not commit to the plan. But four days later, the two patched up their split and sent their staffs back to the negotiating table to find a version both could accept.
The critical concessions that ultimately won Manchin’s support included jettisoning billions of dollars’ worth of tax increases he opposed and winning a commitment from Biden and Democratic leaders to
enact legislation to streamline the permitting of energy infrastructure. That could ease the way for a shale gas pipeline project in West Virginia in which Manchin has taken a personal interest.
“I’m saying straight to you, without permitting reforms, without the ability for America to do what it does best — produce — there is no bill,” he said Thursday morning, speaking to Hoppy Kercheval, a West Virginia radio host. “That is totally agreed upon and understood.”
In a private caucus meeting Thursday morning, Schumer began laying the groundwork for what promises to be an arduous process
of steering the compromise through the evenly divided Senate, made more difficult by the chamber’s arcane rules, Democrats’ bare-minimum majority and a coronavirus surge among senators.
He counseled Democratic senators that they had the opportunity to deliver on their long-standing ambitions to combat the threat of climate change and allow Medicare, for the first time, to negotiate the prices of prescription drugs, pushing down costs for patients.
“It will require us to stick together and work long days and nights for the next 10 days,” Schumer told his colleagues, according to a Democrat in the room, who disclosed details of the private meeting on the condition of anonymity.
Should the compromise hold and survive consideration by the Senate and the House, it would allow Democrats to enact major legislation weeks before the midterm congressional elections to address health care costs, climate change and inflation — all while fulfilling long-standing promises to tax the rich and reduce the deficit.
But the fate of the measure remained on shaky ground.
It was not clear whether it would have the unanimous support among Democrats needed to pass.
Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, another holdout on her party’s domestic policy package, skipped the Democratic caucus meeting Thursday and would not comment on the bill or indicate whether she planned to support it.
“She’s reviewing text and will need to review what comes out of the parliamentarian process,” a spokesperson said.
Sinema has in the past opposed one element of the agreement: a proposal to change a preferential tax treatment for income earned by venture capitalists.
Even if it can win passage in the Senate, the measure would also need to pass the House, where Democrats can spare only a few votes given likely unanimous Republican opposition.
Democratic leaders aimed to hold votes on the legislation in the Senate as early as next week, before the chamber is scheduled to leave for the annual August recess.