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History’s Greatest Obstacle to Climate Progress Has Finally Fallen -- Democrats passed a bill that would, for the first time ever, use Congress’s power to push the U.S. to decarbonize
... After an all-night session that stretched from Saturday evening into Sunday afternoon, Democrats voted along party lines to pass the first comprehensive climate law in American history. The bill will touch every sector of the economy, subsidizing massive new investments in renewable and geothermal energy, as well as nuclear power and carbon capture and removal, and encouraging new clean-energy manufacturing industries to develop in the United States.
It is the first economy-wide emissions-reduction bill adopted by the Senate. At more than $369 billion, its investment in climate change is the largest in the country’s history.
As the bill neared a final vote, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York declared that it would “endure as one of the defining legislative feats of the 21st century.”
The bill will reduce U.S. emissions to about 40 percent below their all-time high, according to several studies from independent analysts. That will get the country about two-thirds of the way to accomplishing President Joe Biden’s goal of cutting emissions 50 percent below their all-time high by 2030,...
“We have never seen the Senate pass a major climate bill. It felt nearly impossible for decades—it felt nearly impossible for the last month,” Leah Stokes, a political-science professor at UC Santa Barbara, told me.
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2022/08/senate-climate-inflation-reduction-bill-passed/671073/
... After an all-night session that stretched from Saturday evening into Sunday afternoon, Democrats voted along party lines to pass the first comprehensive climate law in American history. The bill will touch every sector of the economy, subsidizing massive new investments in renewable and geothermal energy, as well as nuclear power and carbon capture and removal, and encouraging new clean-energy manufacturing industries to develop in the United States.
It is the first economy-wide emissions-reduction bill adopted by the Senate. At more than $369 billion, its investment in climate change is the largest in the country’s history.
As the bill neared a final vote, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York declared that it would “endure as one of the defining legislative feats of the 21st century.”
The bill will reduce U.S. emissions to about 40 percent below their all-time high, according to several studies from independent analysts. That will get the country about two-thirds of the way to accomplishing President Joe Biden’s goal of cutting emissions 50 percent below their all-time high by 2030,...
“We have never seen the Senate pass a major climate bill. It felt nearly impossible for decades—it felt nearly impossible for the last month,” Leah Stokes, a political-science professor at UC Santa Barbara, told me.
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2022/08/senate-climate-inflation-reduction-bill-passed/671073/
Democrats have actually made some extremely important environmental/climate legislation happen in the past, but not this big of this particular type. It's not nearly enough, but it's defining because it's a huge step that WE have finally taken.
It's critical to realize WHAT we have to do for our children and to unite to do it. Sanders is SO right that we're the wealthiest nation on earth, so wealthy that to be poor here is to be affluent compared to billions elsewhere. This is what "poor" children look like in America (healthy!) :
Our wealth is the lengthy product of centuries of building. We have it now, but our prosperity is not unbreakable -- planetary climate change can destroy it, and with it cause debilitating, life-devastating poverty, and worse. Eyes on and commitment to REAL STEPS required to protect our children from that.
Vote for BIG Democratic majorities to take them. That's OUR job -- to make bigger action possible.
and of our latest big achievement. America desperately needs more people to realize who WE are and what we are doing. So more will get on board and much more will become possible.
Deflecting from our success to negative messaging can wait for another week. Not next week, though, please -- that's when the house will send our historic Climate, Tax, and Healthcare bill to President Biden to be signed into law.
