It’s actually quite simple, as shown in the diagram below.
Posted on 10/18/2021 11:43:07 AM PDT by MNJohnnie
Democrats in both chambers of Congress have long emphasized their $3.5 trillion budget bill’s climate policies as constituting a crucial element of the bill; however, moderate Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W. Va.) remains unconvinced on these, even as Democrats speed toward another legislative deadline at the end of October.
For most Democrats in Congress, policies to reduce carbon emissions and to move away from fossil fuels have been a keystone of their policy priorities for months.
When Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who drafted the original budget framework, introduced the bill on the Senate floor, he promised an “extremely aggressive … [transformation of the U.S.] energy system away from fossil fuels.” Sanders’ budget framework allocated over $250 billion to the measure.
Other multi-million allocations in the bill are meant for the same purpose. For example, millions would go toward the research and development of low-to-zero emissions buses and ferries. Another policy in the bill would provide federal funding to build new charging stations for electric cars.
Outside of the legislative process, President Joe Biden has been seeking the same ends.
At the beginning of his term, Biden halted construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. The president also placed a moratorium on new leases for oil and natural gas companies on federal lands.
But Manchin, the key swing-voter, does not love the policies.
Manchin criticized the policies during a CNN appearance in September, when he told reporters that companies were already switching to clean energy on their own where possible.
“Now [Democrats are] wanting to pay companies to do what they’re already doing,” he observed, adding “Makes no sense to me at all for us to take billions of dollars and pay utilities for what they’re going to do as the market transitions.”
Manchin’s skepticism of these policies is rooted in concerns about the effects that they could have on his state of West Virginia, where carbon-producing coal provides nearly all electricity in the state according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
In May 2021, coal provided nearly five million MWh of electricity to West Virginia, while the next most used source, natural gas, provided less than 300 thousand MWh. Green energy sources in the state provide even less: hydroelectric accounts for 134 thousand MWh and non-hydroelectric renewables (like biomass, solar, and wind) account for only 106 thousand MWh.
In other words, nearly 91 percent of all electricity in the state is sourced by burning coal.
In an interview with a local West Virginia station, Manchin repudiated the idea that America’s coal industry was “polluting the world and the climate.” He argued that it “has no effect whatsoever compared to the impact of Asia.” According to the International Energy Agency, China pumped nearly twice as much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as the United States in 2018.
Manchin argued that the coal industry “has to be saved, because the country can’t survive without it.”
Specifically, Manchin opposes a policy that would grant utility companies federal funds for increasing the share of clean energy in their power grid, a policy that would work to the detriment of smaller coal-based companies in West Virginia.
But Democrats have been insistent on these policies to reduce emissions.
Biden has expressed hope that the country can cut emissions by 50 percent by 2030, a tall order on its own. Manchin’s long-time resistance to Democratic efforts that would undercut the coal industry only make that goal harder to achieve.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), author of the controversial Green New Deal, blasted Manchin for his opposition to the climate provisions.
In a tweet, Ocasio-Cortez wrote: “We cannot advance legislation that makes the climate crisis worse … clean energy [provisions] in [the budget bill] … let us tackle the climate crisis. We cannot afford to gut it.”
She continued, “Any negotiations on climate need to ensure that we will come out climate positive. And that emissions math cannot be informed by fossil fuel lobbyists, who don’t even count methane.”
Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.) said that she was open to negotiations over climate provisions, but demanded that the budget “meaningfully address climate change.” On Twitter, the senator wrote: “I’m open to different approaches, but I cannot support a bill that won’t get us where we need to be on emissions.”
Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) was even more caustic, writing in a tweet: “Manchin is why Congress contorted itself to legislate via budget reconciliation—because he loves the racist, anti-democratic filibuster. Now he’s blocking climate action at the behest of a fossil fuel industry that enriches him & his family.
We are shipping the coal to China so they can burn. They have cheap energy to have even lower costs in manufacturing. That solves the global warming problem.
After traveling through various parklands in the west this year along with some other areas that do not even have cell coverage yet, I wonder how the government plans to put charging stations in areas that are already underserved.
Yellowstone? Zion National Park? Alaska? Parts of the Southwest?
Or is the plan to keep the riff-raff and unwashed “others” away from the crown jewels by limiting where and how you can travel.
It’s actually quite simple, as shown in the diagram below.
Strange how the media doesn’t praise Manchin as a maverick.
The liberals think you get electricity by plugging into an electrical outlet. They don’t think about how electricity is generated in power plants. Thus, they have no conception of how we are going to generate huge additional amounts of electricity for electric cars.
Remember that jagoff who said the unvaxxed (and probably the unmasked) should be denied health care -- not coverage, no Obamacare, but actually not be able to get help from doctors etc?
In that spirit, people who claim that climate change is human-induced should be forced to do without heat, light, transporation, and other things made possible by the electical production and distribution grid, such as metals, food, and yes, healthcare. Exiling them to an island somewhere might be the most effective and humane way of accomplishing this.
“How exactly are we suppose to get the electricity to power the electric cars the Leftist are mandating we switch to?”
Hopefully that’s a rhetorical question and you know the answer.
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