Biden negotiated away two-thirds of his climate funding
Speaking Security Newsletter | Advisory Note for Organizers and Candidates, n°125 | 21 October 2021
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Situation
The new climate funding amount in the reconciliation bill reported yesterday—$300 billion/10 years—is about a ~50% reduction from the original figure. Biden failed in two ways, here: First, agreeing to cut climate funding from $60 billion/year to $30 billion/year; second, he shouldn’t have proposed such a low number in the first place.
Negotiating away half the climate funding in his reconciliation bill follows Biden negotiating away three-quarters of climate-related spending in his infrastructure bill. In March, the infrastructure bill contained $1.26 trillion in climate funding; by the end of July, it had $320 billion.
In the aggregate, two-thirds of the climate funding he started with is now gone.
Lesson
Electing a moderate like Biden didn’t help us, here. His starting points for both the reconciliation and infrastructure bill negotiations were too low. Moreover, instead of publicly campaigning for the (original) bills or and against recalcitrant Democrats (and Republicans), he reassured us he could talk obstructionists out of being obstructionists. He was either lying or being foolish, because at the end of the day, Biden got absolutely rolled in negotiations:
Thanks for your time,
Stephen (@stephensemler; stephen@securityreform.org)
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