A green Puerto Rico
INTO THE NEW YEAR: Biden acknowledged Thursday that Democrats’ $1.7 trillion reconciliation package won’t get done this year. But Senate climate hawks remain adamant yet another delay is not damaging to the fortunes of the legislation, Pro’s Josh Siegel reports.
“It’s just a hope we get it done before Christmas,” said Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii). “But if we get it done after Christmas, that would be just fine.”
“This is a hard thing to do, but it's an incredibly important thing to do. We just can't give up,” Environment and Public Works Chair Tom Carper told Josh. “Hopefully, we can get the ball in the end zone this month. But if we can’t, when we come back on Jan. 3, let's get back to work.”
Democrats said they won’t lose momentum by skirting past another self-imposed deadline and punting their climate and social spending bill to 2022, an election year that always represents tough terrain to pass big legislation. But multiple senators still acknowledged Thursday that the drawn-out negotiations mean the U.S. is wasting precious time in making a meaningful contribution to the global fight against climate change.
Democrats already failed to achieve an earlier goal of arming Biden with a major legislative win ahead of the recent COP26 U.N. climate conference, which caused some allies to question whether the U.S. can achieve his aggressive emissions reduction targets. And House Democrats, for their part, are losing patience with their Senate colleagues after they successfully passed their version of the spending bill last month with similarly tight margins.
“If this is a punt into next year on Build Back Better, it would be deeply disappointing and arguably a betrayal,” Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) told Josh. “We have a climate crisis and there is an urgent need to do this. Senators need to walk and chew gum and approve nominees and pass Build Back Better all at the same time.”
By: Matthew Choi
Source: Politico Pro
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