Democrats vent their fury as Joe Manchin shelves action on climate change
“I don’t want to spend one more minute thinking about what Joe Manchin will or won’t do," said Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, chair of the Democrats' House campaign arm.
WASHINGTON — Democrats are sounding dire warnings after Sen. Joe Manchin tanked their hopes of acting on climate change.
“We’re all going to die,” House Budget Committee Chairman John Yarmuth, D-Ky., told reporters when asked about the consequences of Congress failing to act.
Yarmuth’s remarks on Friday captured the cocktail of anger, frustration, resentment and powerlessness that many Democrats felt after Manchin, D-W.Va., took a one-man wrecking ball to what’s left of President Joe Biden’s agenda, dealing a heavy blow to their big policy ambitions and further complicating a tough midterm election landscape for the party.
“It doesn’t matter what I advise. The Senate’s the Senate. It doesn’t matter what any of us do. Apparently, it doesn’t matter what the administration does. We’ve got one person who’s trying to dictate policy for the entire country and that’s a shame,” Yarmuth told NBC News, describing the mood in the party as “incredible frustration.”
“Unfortunately, we have one Democrat who thinks he knows better than every other Democrat,” he said.
Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., openly questioned if Manchin should keep his gavel as chairman of the Senate energy committee.
Rep. Cori Bush, D-Mo., dubbed Manchin “Mr. Fossil Fuel Industry.”
In a radio interview Friday with WV MetroNews, Manchin confirmed that he told Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer Thursday he was ready to vote to empower Medicare to negotiate drug prices and extend funding under the Affordable Care Act. But he said he wanted to hold off on clean energy funding and other provisions in the Biden agenda bill until at least mid-August, citing inflation concerns.
“I said, ‘Chuck, it’s wrong, it’s not prudent to do the other [items] right now,’” Manchin said, adding that if inflation comes down, “we can come back the first of September and pass this piece of legislation, if it’s a good piece of legislation.”
In a statement, Biden vowed that “if the Senate will not move to tackle the climate crisis and strengthen our domestic clean energy industry, I will take strong executive action to meet this moment.”
In the meantime, he said, the Senate “should move forward” with the parts that Manchin has agreed to — a bill on drug pricing and ACA funding and “pass it before the August recess, and get it to my desk so I can sign it.” Without naming Manchin, he said even that smaller bill will “lower the cost of prescription drugs and health care for families” and “reduce the deficit and help fight inflation.”