Biden's Climate Agenda Has a Big Obstacle: Joe Manchin

Joe Manchin has gotten plenty of attention for his status as a Democratic holdout on President Biden's spending plans. As the wrangling continues, a flurry of new stories is focusing in particular on the West Virginia senator's opposition to the signature element of Biden's climate agenda. Details:

• The program: Manchin opposes the $150 billion Clean Electricity Performance Program, which would reward utilities that shift to clean energy and penalize companies that don't, reports the Washington Post. Without the CEPP, Biden will have a tougher time meeting his goal to cut greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030, per E&E News.
• What Manchin says: The CEPP is a waste of money, maintains Manchin, whose state is a major producer of US coal. "They're wanting to pay companies to do what they're already doing," he says, per NPR. "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." Fellow Democratic Sen. Tina Smith of Minnesota says Manchin is "just not right," adding, "In fact, what we're doing is we're providing utilities with support, so that they can rapidly add clean power without raising utility rates."

• His ties: The New York Times has a lengthy story about all this, pointing out that Manchin has personal financial ties to the coal industry, as well as political ones. The story also finds that West Virginia already is being affected by climate change in the form of unusually "frequent and intense" rain. "New data shows that Mr. Manchin's constituents stand to suffer disproportionately as climate change intensifies," per the story. "Unlike those in other flood-exposed states, most residents in mountainous West Virginia have little room to relocate from the waterways that increasingly threaten their safety."
• Buttigieg: Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg sounded a similar theme on CNN Sunday, warning that holdouts such as Manchin are missing the bigger picture on climate change. "The longer you take to do something about it, the more it's going to cost in livelihoods as well as lives," he said, per the Guardian.
• Sanders vs. Manchin: In an op-ed in West Virginia's Charleston Gazette-Mail, Bernie Sanders went after Manchin for his opposition to Biden's plans. The piece mostly focused on social programs, but the Vermont senator also accused Manchin of blocking progress on the "existential threat of climate change." In response, Manchin tweeted that "I will not vote for a reckless expansion of government programs."
• Deadline: Biden will be in Scotland in about two weeks for a global forum on climate change, and climate envoy John Kerry warns that US credibility is on the line because of the inability to pass the legislation. He tells the AP that losing the CEPP "would be like President Trump pulling out of the Paris Agreement, again."

(More Joe Manchin stories.)