The year in federal climate politics and what lies ahead

The year is coming to a close, which means us bloggers are
obliged to do a year-end post, looking back on the year’s events
and looking ahead to what’s next. I’ll be honest, I had second
thoughts about whether to publish this post at all — my outlook
is pretty gloomy and I don’t want to be a spreader of gloom — but
I figure you pay me for the straight scoop. So here it is.


The broad story is that, as bad as it sometimes felt going
through it, we are coming to the end of the most productive year
of federal climate politics that any of us are likely to
experience for a long, long time. I’m not sure it ever really
sank in with most people, including Democrats in Congress, but
this was the last big shot. After the Build Back Better Act
passes (if it passes), that will be it for federal climate
legislation.


After that, those of us hoping for climate progress will have to
forget about first-best solutions and begin thinking in terms of
guerrilla actions, in states, cities, and the private sector.
That’s a very different mindset than the push for a centralized
solution.


Let’s begin with a quick review of the events of the last year.


Democrats’ inevitably disappointing legislation limps toward the
finish line


Joe Biden entered his first term as president in an impossible
situation.


He was swept into office on a wave of high hopes, given total
Democratic control over the federal government, in the wake of an
election marked by expansive policy promises and record voter
turnout.


At the same time, his majority in the Senate — salvaged by the
two miraculous Democratic wins in Georgia — is razor-thin. Given
the effectively automatic use of the filibuster by Republicans
these days, absent filibuster reform, Democrats simply can’t pass
bills under regular order. They can only pass bills through
budget reconciliation, and even on that, they need the votes of
every single one of their senators to do anything.


Given that basic structure, disappointment was inevitable.


Biden and the Democrats started strong out of the gate. Congress
delivered the Covid relief bill. Biden issued a flurry of
executive orders. Vaccination rates began rising. As long as
Democrats were doing stuff, taking action, controlling the news
cycle, Biden’s approval rating held up.


Around July-August, two things happened. First, Biden withdrew US
troops from Afghanistan, after which the Taliban quickly took
control, sparking an extended wave of hysterically negative
mainstream press coverage. (Coverage of Biden in right-wing media
was, of course, hysterically negative on day one and has been
ever since.)


Second, legislative action ground to a halt and segued into
months of frustrating negotiations, which continue to this day.


They split their big bill in two, allowing a bipartisan group of
senators to hash out a roads-and-bridges infrastructure bill (the
bipartisan infrastructure framework, or BIF) while leaving
everything else to a second bill. The idea was to give Sens. Joe
Manchin (D-WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) their bipartisan
achievement, but to require that they pass it alongside a
Dems-only reconciliation bill, the Build Back Better Act (BBB).


At the time, Democrats from Biden and Senate Majority Leader
Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) on
down pledged that the BIF would not pass without the BBB. The
bills were a single package, they all emphasized. “It's going to
be either both or nothing,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) said.


What happened instead is that the bipartisan group put together a
relatively bare-bones bill and got it passed through the Senate.
That put immense pressure on the House to follow suit, despite
everyone’s pledges. The progressive caucus, led by Rep. Pramila
Jayapal (D-WA), held together and refused to pass the BIF for as
long as it could, but in November, it relented and the House
passed the bill.


Progressives voted for the BIF based on a promise from Biden that
he could secure Manchin’s vote for the BBB in something close to
its present form. By all appearances thus far, that promise was
worth very little. Manchin showed no sign at the time, and has
showed no sign since, that he’s willing to vote for BBB as it
stands.


In fact, before and after the BIF passed, he has done nothing but
talk down the BBB, set arbitrary limits on its total size, and
demand that elements be eliminated (like the Clean Electricity
Payment Program) or radically pared back (like paid leave).


Sinema has been frustrating throughout the process, but at least
for now, it looks like she got what she wanted — protecting
Pharma from price competition and corporations from higher taxes
— and is now ready to vote the bill through.


Manchin, on the other hand, has been nothing but a jerk, from the
very beginning and at every stage. He’s been more of a jerk than
is explicable even given the red lean of his state, even given
his outlandishly corrupt conflicts of interest. He’s been a vain,
inconstant, ill-informed font of conservative economic gibberish,
theatrically sticking his thumb in the eyes of the other 49
members of his caucus.


He’s still being a jerk, calling for a “strategic pause” on the
bill and citing inflation as a justification. (Economists say
that the BBB will alleviate inflation.) He’s out peddling a fake
Congressional Budget Office report from Sen. Lindsey Graham
(R-SC), using it to go after the child tax credit, which is just
about the most ignorant and malicious thing he could conceivably
be doing.


Schumer keeps setting deadlines to vote on the BBB, but they keep
blowing past with no agreement and no repercussions. Last week he
was saying Christmas; now they’re talking about some time early
next year.


As Biden’s approval rating continues struggling — the negative
coverage that began with Afghanistan never ceased — and inflation
drags on, Manchin is more and more empowered. He loves where he
is right now: at the center of attention, the man in the middle,
the Democrat who screws over other Democrats. He’ll stay in that
spotlight as long as he can.


And that brings us up to date on the big picture. What about
climate policy?


Build Back Better is still good climate policy


On climate, it’s been a roller coaster. Heading into the
election, Dems across the party seemed united around an ambitious
policy vision. The climate plans of the leading candidates
reflected it, including, eventually, Biden’s.


When elected, rather than retreating from that agenda, Biden
embraced it. He brought climate activists into the fold to help
shape policy. He hired superstars for key energy-related
positions. He said all the right things.


When the Covid relief bill was passed and attention turned to the
BBB agenda, Sanders led with a $6 trillion proposal that was,
among other things, a climate policy buffet. That was in June.
Ever since then, Democratic climate plans have diminished.


The $6 trillion proposal became a $3.5 trillion proposal. Before
the election, Manchin was saying he would support $4 trillion
just on infrastructure, but in his new role as Jerk-in-Chief, he
decided he would only support $1.5 trillion.


Of course, even after Dems cut down the bill to please him, he
kept whacking. He took out the Clean Electricity Payment Program,
the one energy policy in the bill that had some financial
penalties alongside its rewards. He’s currently trying to kill
the EV tax credit bonus for union-made vehicles (the Toyota plant
in West Virginia isn’t unionized). He’s jacked up the size of the
carbon-capture tax credits.


Who knows what else he’ll do. But it is notable that, when the
$3.5 trillion bill was cut to a $1.75 trillion bill and then a
$1.5 trillion bill, the overall size of climate spending, around
$555 billion, remained almost the same. Clearly Democrats are
prioritizing climate.


Despite all the frustrations along the way, it remains true that
if the BBB passes in something like its present form, it will
represent the biggest investment in carbon mitigation in US
history.


As with all climate policy, how you rate it depends on what
baseline you choose to measure against. It’s obviously much more
than would have happened if Trump had won, or if Democrats had
lost in Georgia. That is to say: it’s more than nothing.


It’s much more than the US has ever done before, including in
Obama’s 2009 stimulus bill, which prompted enormous growth in
clean energy. It’s more than I would have predicted the day after
the Georgia elections.


Equally obviously, it’s far short of what’s needed, which is in
the tens of trillions over the next several decades. It is
unbalanced policy, consisting entirely of carrots (tax breaks and
subsidies) with no sticks (regulations or fines) whatsoever. And
it’s much worse off, its effects less certain, after Manchin got
done with it.


Princeton did some modeling using the House version of the bill
and found that, while the BIF alone would yield almost no
emission reductions, and BBB + BIF + CEPP would reduce emissions
enough to hit the US 2030 emissions target, BBB + BIF would …
fall somewhat short, but be a hell of a lot better than BIF
alone.


The three big lessons to draw from the modeling are a) the BIF
alone is, from a climate perspective, basically worthless, and b)
Manchin did serious damage to climate policy by removing the
CEPP, however c) BBB remains remains America’s only real hope of
staying even close to a safe climate trajectory. It desperately
needs to pass.


What’s gonna happen?


My guess is, Manchin will continue being a jerk, whittling down
the BBB well into spring, generating more stories about Dems in
Disarray, frustrating and demotivating Democratic activists,
driving down Biden’s approval rating, and rendering final passage
of the bill (I do think something will ultimately pass) a sour
affair about which no one will feel particularly excited.


Democrats will celebrate and tout the bill. At least some BBB
money will begin reaching voters relatively quickly. But that
alone will not be nearly enough to overcome the enormous
headwinds facing Dems as they head into the midterms.


One of the only reforms that could make a real dent is the
Freedom to Vote Act, which would give judges the power to reject
overtly imbalanced redistricting. Without that reform, extreme
recent Republican gerrymandering will remain in effect for a
decade. It alone will guarantee the GOP the House in 2022, even
if every voter votes the same as 2020.


But voting reform requires filibuster reform, and despite some
recent buzz, Sinema appears immovable on the subject. Between her
and Manchin, filibuster reform seems unlikely, which means voting
reform is unlikely, which means Democrats are probably heading
for a crushing defeat in the midterms. They stand to lose dozens
of seats and control of the House.


Whether they lose the Senate depends on the size of the wave,
which depends somewhat on events over the next year, particularly
what happens with gas prices. If things go just right, Dems could
hang on to the Senate. If things go poorly, they could lose it.


Either way, without the House, there will be no more federal
legislating for Democrats — not in the last two years of Biden’s
administration, likely not in the next 10 years, if not longer.


If they keep the Senate in 2022, Dems can stave off an
impeachment (at least a successful one), install more good
judges, and allow Biden space to pursue his executive agenda. If
they lose it, some kind of impeachment effort becomes likely
(Republicans will make something up). Certainly the final two
years of Biden’s presidency will be defensive.


Controlling the House will allow Republicans to launch endless
bogus investigations and subpoena Democratic lawmakers in
retribution for the Jan. 6 panel. It will allow them even greater
control over the news cycle. But most importantly, it will allow
them to throw the 2024 election to Trump, no matter how many
votes he receives.


As the Jan. 6 investigation has made extremely clear, Trump and
his allies tried their best to steal the 2020 election. They were
stopped by a few key Republican officials and (oddly) Vice
President Mike Pence. They have been busy ever since clearing
those obstructions, stocking key state election offices and
legislatures with loyalists, gerrymandering safe districts in the
House, and passing voter suppression laws across the country.
They intend to accuse Democrats of cheating and steal the 2024
presidential election — they aren’t even particularly hiding it.


In short, US democracy is lurching toward one-party
authoritarianism and I don’t see forces on the horizon capable of
stopping it.


That’s a grim place to conclude our year in review, I realize. I
don’t want to bum everyone out. Obviously, everyone should do
everything in their power to prevent this outcome. Nothing is
written in advance; there is always a chance the tide can be beat
back. But at the same time, it’s worth thinking through how Biden
and Democrats can maximize the coming year to minimize the
damage.


And it’s worth beginning to think about how, if the federal
government is taken off the board, climate progress can be made
through subnational governments and the private sector.


I’ll have more to say soon on the positive story unfolding
outside the federal government. And more to say about what four
more years of Trump and Republicans could mean for the climate
effort. But for now, I’ll just conclude by saying: the BBB must
pass, no matter what. Everything depends on it.


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