Behind Manchin’s Opposition, a Long History of Fighting Climate Measures

Mr. Manchin on Sunday argued that “the energy transition my colleagues seek is already well underway,” as the price of wind and solar energy drops, easing the utility and transportation sectors away from oil, gas and coal. But scientists say the pace must happen much more quickly if the world is to stave off the most catastrophic impacts from climate change and that’s what the incentives in the bill were designed to achieve.

“These were exactly the same arguments he made when he opposed the clean electricity plan yet now he’s using them to oppose what are just sensible clean energy tax credits,” Ms. Smith said. She called them “wrong” on both counts.

In some sense, the current standoff between most Democrats and Mr. Manchin is a drama foretold. In 2018, when the ranking Democrat on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Maria Cantwell of Washington, used her seniority to jump to the top of the Senate Commerce Committee, environmentalist Democrats pleaded with the next most senior liberal, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, to take the gavel — and keep it from Mr. Manchin. But Mr. Sanders, an independent with national ambitions, chose instead to take the top post on the Senate Budget Committee. That, under strict rules of seniority, left the energy committee open for Mr. Manchin’s taking. As chairman, Mr. Manchin was responsible for writing several of the climate provisions in the Senate’s version of the Build Back Better Act.

Democrats said Monday they are just starting to discuss how to salvage the bill’s climate change provisions.

Senator Brian Schatz, Democrat of Hawaii, said he could see some parts, like the clean energy incentives, moving in smaller “chunks.”

“There’s a lot of conversation about the politics of this, and what it means for the specific bill,” Mr. Schatz said. “But I feel like the fundamentals are in our favor on the climate side.”

“The science is more ruthless than the politics, and on climate there’s broad agreement that we have to do something big and bold,” he said.

White House Says It Does Not Keep Visitor Logs at Biden’s Delaware Home

WASHINGTON — White House officials said on Monday that there are no visitor logs that keep track of who comes and goes from President Biden’s personal residence in Wilmington, Del., where six classified documents were discovered in recent days. A top House Republican demanded on Sunday that the White House turn over visitor logs for […]

Know More

A Florida School Received a Threat. Did a Red Flag Law Prevent a Shooting?

The requests were granted. But the results of the search were not what the detective expected. Memories of Parkland Nationally, more than 20,000 petitions for extreme risk protection orders were filed from 1999 to 2021, according to data collected by Everytown for Gun Safety, an advocacy group. A vast majority of those petitions — more […]

Know More

A Colossal Off-Year Election in Wisconsin

Lauren Justice for The New York Times Conservatives have controlled the court since 2008. Though the court upheld Wisconsin’s 2020 election results, last year it ruled drop boxes illegal, allowed a purge of the voter rolls to take place and installed redistricting maps drawn by Republican legislators despite the objections of Gov. Tony Evers, a […]

Know More