A group of nearly two dozen House Democrats penned a letter to President Joe Biden on Monday, asking the White House not to toss out climate and clean energy investments in upcoming negotiations. 

What You Need To Know

  • A group of 23 House Democrats penned a letter to Joe Biden on Monday, asking the president to keep climate provisions in future iterations of the Build Back Better Act

  • Biden’s multi-trillion Build Back Better plan, which contains $550 billion in spending and tax credits aimed at promoting clean energy, passed the House in late November

  • The bill was sidetracked Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who said just before Christmas that he could not support the legislation as written

  • Manchin has since indicated that he might be open to climate provisions being included in the package

Led by Rep. Mike Levin, D-Calif., the 23 Democrats urged Biden “in the strongest possible terms to move swiftly to finalize the most comprehensive legislation that can pass the Senate and get this historic progress to your desk for your signature in the coming weeks.”

“The need to act on the climate crisis while centering environmental justice and creating and sustaining millions of good-paying union jobs has never been more important,” the group added. “In communities across the country, we are already seeing staggering climate damages.” 

The lawmakers pointed to a number of recent climate change-induced disasters – like the worsening fire season in the midwest and increased costs from severe flooding – as reason for their urgency. Some of the letter’s signatories, including California’s Rep. Katie Porter, are up for reelection in newly-redrawn districts this year.  

Biden’s multi-trillion Build Back Better plan, which contains $550 billion in spending and tax credits aimed at promoting clean energy, passed the House in late November. It was sidetracked Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who said just before Christmas that he could not support the legislation as written.

Democrats would need all their votes in the 50-50 Senate to advance the measure over unanimous Republican opposition.

Manchin took issue with the inclusion of a child tax credit and paid parental leave in the potential bill, and has since indicated that he might be open to climate provisions being included in the package. He also wants to include money to promote nuclear power and capture emissions from industrial facilities that pump out greenhouse gasses.

“I think that the climate thing is one that we probably can come to agreement much easier than anything else,” he told reporters in early January. 

Several weeks later, President Biden appeared to propose cutting the bill into smaller chunks in order to pass climate provisions quickly, saying: “I think it’s clear that we would be able to get support for the $500 billion plus for energy and the environment.”

As originally proposed, the Biden bill offers incentives for electric car purchases, development of technology to capture and store carbon emissions, and construction of wind and solar farms, among other provisions.

House Democrats who signed Monday’s letter said the provisions are needed in order to achieve the United States’ goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030. 

Even without the legislation, Biden can pursue his climate agenda through rules and regulations. But those can be undone by subsequent presidents, as demonstrated by Biden reversing Trump administration rules that rolled back protections put into place under Barack Obama.

Biden has pushed forward in certain climate areas, and in late January the administration issued its first clean energy loan guarantee, reviving an Obama-era program that helped launch the country’s first utility-scale wind and solar farms a decade ago but has largely gone dormant in recent years.