Joe Manchin Sinks Dementia Joe’s Climate Plan
By Paul Homewood
For those who don’t follow events from across the pond, there is very good news:
Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., declared Sunday that after months of negotiations he has determined that there is no way he can support the massive social spending bill known as the Build Back Better Act (BBB).
Speaking with "Fox News Sunday," Manchin said that he has spoken with President Biden, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., but could not reach an agreement on the legislation.
"I’ve done everything humanly possible," Manchin said, talking about how hard he has worked to try to reach an acceptable compromise on the bill.
To briefly explain, Joe Manchin is the Democrat Senator for West Virginia, heart of coal mining country. In a number of ways, he is very much like old Labour in the UK, someone who cares about the interests of his working class constituents and nothing for the woke, far left obsessions of the metropolitan elite.
As the Senate is split 50/50, with the deciding vote going to VP Kamala Harris, Manchin’s vote for BBB is crucial to get the Act passed. But Manchin has pulled the plug for two reasons:
- The anti fossil fuel provisions
- The mammoth cost, estimated at $5 trillion, at a time when inflation is already running at 7%, far above UK levels.
Biden had initially included in his Infrastructure Bill (passed in October) several items to tackle climate change, including:
- $313 billion (over 10 yrs) for energy efficiency schemes
- $174 billion to subsidise electric cars and infrastructure.
These were dropped in order to get the bill passed.
But Biden’s main climate plank was to be included in his BBB - the Clean Electricity Program. This was designed to subsidise utilities which increased renewable capacity, whilst penalising ones which did not. Largely because of Joe Manchin’s obduracy, this also had to be dropped from BBB.
There is no mention either of a carbon tax, or any action to reduce methane emissions, something which Dementia Joe campaigned for at COP26.
So what was left of Biden’s climate agenda in BBB?
- Subsidies for homeowners to fit solar panels etc..
- A Clean Energy program, to fund port electrification, electric buses and so on.
- Creation of a new Civilian Climate Corps, a 300,000 strong of “diverse people who look like America”!
In other words, bugger all. Yet even this bag of nonsense is not going to be passed now.
The US Pledge at COP26 centred around:
- 100% carbon free electricity by 2035
- Reducing emissions by 50 to 52% from 2005 levels by 2030. This effectively means a cut of 40% from today’s levels:
His failure to legislate any of his substantive program to achieve these objectives means that they are all just pie in the sky. Wishful thinking is one thing. Actually making it happen is another.
Is there any prospect of Biden getting his BBB enacted next year? Word from America suggests not.
Quite clearly, Joe Manchin, to his credit, has refused to fall for Biden’s attempts to manipulate the costs, underestimating them by two thirds. Anything remotely acceptable to him will be anathema to the far left, who are pulling Dementia’s strings.
There is also the slight problem of next year’s Mid Term Elections, which are increasingly looking like a disaster zone for the Democrats, who will therefore shy away from further unpopular actions in Congress.
With an almost certain Republican majority in Congress after next November, we can safely assume that Joe’s climate plan is dead in the water.
Whether the idiots in Europe will have the courage to work this out and act accordingly remains to be seen.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Homewood’s analysis on Manchin’s position on BBB bill fyi Barrie. Thank goodness Manchin stood up to Biden, Pelosi and Schumer.
Michael
Sent from my iPhone
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Yes having watched the video it was inspiring to see at least one man could stand up against the Biden machine
“he is very much like old Labour in the UK, someone who cares about the interests of his working class constituents and nothing for the woke, far left obsessions of the metropolitan elite.”
Slightly off topic and maybe because I am getting a bit nostalgic for the old days (!) but I recall growing up in Hull when the George Brown/Harold Wilson labour leadership contest was going on. Labour was clearly identified as representing the working man whichever of the contrasting two proposed leaders won.
Now we seem to have a situation where I genuinely get the impression that the Labour leadership intensely hates its historic traditional voter base and would happily get rid of it if they could.
Surely there is a political party that could reinstate that “white heat of technology” attitude, re industrialise the UK and stop faffing around with green lunacy.
There is no such thing as the common working man any longer. To its credit, the labour party has done a reasonable job over the last 50 years. They were so successful they did themselves out a job but haven’t the dignity to concede that so turned to identity politics in an attempt to keep themselves employed.
I was a member of the Labour Party in the 1980s and 1990s. It was becoming clear by the mid-1990s that the only core support the party had were public secotr workers (mostly white collar, and the less economically successful immigrant communities. The Smith/Blair/Brown transition was a fairly explicit initiative to try to add a few private-sector white collar workers to that mix.
Labour? It was the Tories. Under Labour the working class were stuck in dead-end low skilled jobs producing things nobody wanted of low quality but high prices. Or nationalised industries as we called them. The unions had resisted modernisation for 35 years and so left their members adrift in a world that was for more productive and far more skilled than they were. Shipbuilding, steel making, coal mining, car production, aircraft, white goods, electronics. The huge increase in wealth for the working class has happened despite Labour’s best efforts to do away with capitalism and free markets and with the creative destruction that brings new, higher paid, more productive jobs. How wealthy we would now be if Labour had not nationalised everything in 1945 and if we had simply followed the productivity increases of places like Germany instead.
Joe Manchin – – seems to be the only sane Democrat.
I wonder if there will be others that might stand with him, now that they can use his backbone.
Let’s hear from them. Or her: Sen. Kyrsten Sinema
Is that a Kodiak bear John?
I think that you will find that Kyrsten Sinema has surrendered to the corporates. See ” The Ring of Fire ” on Oct 7th and others.
Labour does not bother with its old support base because all their jobs were shipped east, long, long ago. Criminal and soul destroying for people with real skills. The pendulum cannot swing back quickly enough for me.
This romanticism about “real jobs” is just bizarre. What has gone abroad (until very recently) is low skilled, low value manufacturing. That is an indisputable fact. The absolute value of manufacturing in the UK is higher now than ever. It is only relatively lower because the services sector had grown so vastly – by definition therfore more productive, more skilled jobs. Big Bang in the City brought in 1,000s of ” barrow boys” who rapidly out-competed the public school boys on the trading desks and made themselves wealthy. Same with entrepreneurs across the board. Many have working class backgrounds. And many went into middle class professions – law, medicine, accounting. Much better than bashing metal in a factory for 50 years. Social mobility was very great as a result. Welding a ship together isn’t as skilled a job as financing it or insuring it.
In the1990s and living in Sheffield it was well known that the city still made the same volume of steel, but it didn’t require the mass workforce anymore and that was the major structural change then – I wonder whether it still makes steel and if this by importing how much energy, that’s the major structural change now
I presume that Phoenix44 lives in a different country from me: (I’m in the West Midlands of UK). The jobs that I see which have replaced skilled work are in bar service, restaurant service, warehouses and distribution and other non-export generating jobs. This cannot create wealth, just spend it and pays badly to boot. The derivatives traders that replaced “barra-boys” are more destructive than beneficial to the economy.
The power system in the UK would never have evolved without nationalisation; and, privatisation has been the root cause of the coming supply disaster that we can all see. Our water systems, gas and telephones have not gained from privatisation, and the health system would not have existed without labour.
Otherwise, we may agree on some matters!
The ‘buyer remorse’ is now so strong with record breaking negative polling, so as you say, the mid terms will leave Biden a lame duck in both houses anyway (if you believe GB News!).
GB News gets much of its commentary on Biden and Kamala H. from Sky News Australia (SNA) . Often worth watching for this and its treatment of the green power lobby even if the forthright Alan Jones has moved on. AJ eviscerated Greta T. earlier this year and can be found on You Tube as are many of the more telling commentaries on SNA.
The mid terms are writ large. One of the reasons Biden is now pleading with domestic oil producers to drill and bring gas (petrol) prices down.
If there’s one thing sure to p!ss off middle America its high gas prices.
Yes, and it’s ironic (stupid?) that Biden’s addition of 30 million gallons of oil from the US strategic reserves quickly adds more CO2 from biofuels to the atmosphere… and to the climate emergency and crisis.
The US needed a dose of mad Leftism so that the young could learn what happens and how quickly it goes to pot.
‘The Big Green Propaganda Machine’ is finally getting what it deserves . . . somebody with the gonads to say . . . Enough is Enough !
Labor – Unionization in North America is at it’s lowest point since collective bargaining was legalized 100 years ago. Globalization, Free Trade and Environmental legislation saw to that.
Populism – The voice of the people is gone. The once strident Socialist voices ARE the establishment, and yet, the Little People, The Working Men and Women, remain unheard.
https://www.academia.edu/49676862/Social_Engineering_Environmentalism_and_Globalization_A_New_World_Order
Electric Cars produce at least 15 % MORE CO2 over gasoline for every mile Driven . . .
https://www.academia.edu/62574334/Tesla_Versus_Toyota_Camry
Scientific Fact . . . Nah . . . Can’t be true . . . He musta missed something . . .
On and on it goes . . . God bless us all . . .
.
why do we write about the metropolitan elite ??
I prefer metropolitan muppets !! – a very nice alliteration
The Joe ‘n Joe Show!
Just when I thought there wasn’t a pantomime season in the USA 🙂 …
“Now where’s that BBB?”
“It’s behind you!”
A better Republican than most Republicans.
And Biden was so happy in Glasgow…
Charles, Biden, Kerry – Good Pals,
As was Boris:
https://enb.iisd.org/Glasgow-Climate-Change-Conference-COP26-01Nov2021
“It is one minute to midnight on the Doomsday Clock,” said UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson to the 60 world leaders and luminaries who convened for the first day of statements on the urgency and necessity of enhanced climate action.”
WordPress does weird things, I was just posting the link…
Apologies for being OT but Fraser Nelson in the DT has a great report (with a a great cartoon) about the SAGE scientists producing policy-based reports at the behest of their political masters. If this gains traction it will blow Johnson and Sajid away! And it’s only a short step to show how CC policy is relying on the same policy-based evidence that satisfies a political need.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2021/12/19/tackled-sage-covid-modeller-twitter-quite-revelation/
A lot of the “green” agenda makes sense from the old-fashioned concern with the trade balance, the trade figures used to feature on BBC news, now it is all about racist tweets and similar woke nonsense. Using less of imported fuels makes good economic sense, but only as long as the alternatives also make good economic sense.
What is almost totally lacking from the MSM is the fact that in most regions renewables don’t make economic sense.
Paul, the headline and repetition in the report are out of order, and will lose you subscribers and supporters
” inflation is already running at 7%, far above UK levels.”
Last figure I saw for UK RPI inflation was 7.1%, so not so far above really, In fact not “above” at all.
UK RPI is 5.5%
https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/inflationandpriceindices/timeseries/doge/mm23
Beyond this RPI (CPI) is the PPI . . . This is where the real ‘scare’ is and should be focused. Producer Prices the world over lead to Consumer Prices 3 – 6 months from now. last July in China they were approaching 10 %. By October they were at 13.5 % and in November at 12.9%.
In the USA it reached 9.6 % in November . . . This is what is coming . . .
This is where the real ‘Scare’ about pricing needs to focus . . .
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/ppi.nr0.htm
OT but
European Nuke Plants Offline As Power Prices Hit Record
Bloomberg’s Chief Energy Correspondent Javier Blas tweeted a disturbing map of European day-ahead electricity prices that will hit record highs on Monday.
“EUROPEAN ENERGY CRISIS: Wow, wow, wow… I’m running out of words to describe the European short-term electricity market,” Blas said.
https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/european-power-prices-set-hit-record-high-monday-amid-cold-spell
Some of us in West Virginia are scratching our heads over Joe Manchin’s latest flip-flop or flop-flip. He hails from Marion County just south of Monongalia County where I live and is 3 years younger than I.
His uncle, AJ Manchin, was WV Secretary of State and then State Treasurer (got the state into a whole bunch of financial trouble). AJ was a flim-flam man who might have been the prototype for Boss Hogg.
As WV Governor, Joe liked his own way (whatever it was that day) and I referred to him as “Emperor Joseph.” When Senator Robert C. Byrd died, Joe managed to appoint himself to fill the seat and then ran for it in a special election. He was re-elected to a 6-year term in 2018, so won’t be up for election now. HOWEVER, the radio commercials for Joe and non-stop from various interest groups including several w/ known leftist ties. Curious.
I refer to Senator Joe Manchin as “Joey the Weasel”. He was pro-life to get the WV vote. However, as soon as he was implanted on the national scene, he dumped WV For Life in favor of a pro-choice stance (now he seems to have slithered back to pro-life). With his current stance(s), the feeling is “what is he up to and why”, With Joe Manchin, his moves are determined by what is best for Joe at the moment. He is not up for re-election any time soon…….does he think he might become VP if Joe and Kamala are ousted? He might want to brush up on his grammar. He appointed his wife chairman of the WV School Board. She engineered the Epi-pen debacle with their daughter Heather Manchin Kirby Bresch and the scandal w/ WVU when Joe arranged for her to get a MBA degree she had not earned (later rescinded).
His current stance sounds good, but don’t count on it surviving………
Yes “Joey the Weasel” is probably everything you are saying. But God help us all if ‘The Big Green Propaganda Machine’ gets more than just a toehold on the US Government !
Almost every statistical examination of ‘Science’ presented to the public by The Environmental Movement is FALSE.
Electric Cars burn at least 15 % more CO2 than Gas Cars . . . OHM’s law is ignored !
https://www.academia.edu/62574334/Tesla_Versus_Toyota_Camry
https://www.academia.edu/64085546/Electric_Cars_The_Untold_Story_
There have been 17 periods of Warming and Cooling all with CO2 at 280 PPM except one, our Modern Warming Period. Why was CO2 not responsible for all the others ??
https://www.academia.edu/49421861/CO2_Cradle_of_Life_on_Planet_Earth
Human CO2 is 3 % of total annual contribution, Nature is 97 % how will reducing Our contribution by 20 % or 0.6 % change Global Climate ?
https://www.academia.edu/49537285/Climate_Change_A_fresh_Perspective
Just some Honest questions . . . Respectfully . . .
100% zero emissions electricity by 2035 would require immense, completely unprecedented effort, even if demand stayed the same and wasn’t increased due to transport and heating electrification.
You’d need to replace about 2400 TWh of annual generation that currently comes from power plants that burn fuel.
One nuclear reactor could produce about 8 TWh a year. That means 300 reactors are required. If you started building them now, the first batch would come online in 5 years, optimistically. So you would need to construct 37 reactors each year. The fastest nuclear build out ever happened in France during the Messmer plan, but even that saw only 4 reactors a year constructed on average. The US obviously has a 6 times greater population than France had in the 70s, but 37 is still way greater than 24.
But then they also want electrification of other sectors, and that would raise the demand significantly.
And they don’t want nuclear, which makes it much much harder or most likely impossible. 1 GW of weather depended power would produce 2 TWh annually assuming 20-25% capacity factor, but because of required curtailment and conversion losses, only 1 TWh will remain usable. If new projects could come online in 3 years, you would need to build 220 GW of wind and solar and 100 GW of electrolysers a year, while also converting the existing fuelled power plants to store hydrogen. Fastest build out is probably Germany’s Energiewende, where they constructed 120 GW over 10 years. Adjusting for country size, the similar rate in the US would be 50 GW a year, far below the 220 GW required. And no one even builds hydrogen conversion facilities at scale yet, it’s unclear if that is even scalable, and the problem is that they won’t start building it until wind and solar penetration is very high, when they realise that no matter how much intermittent generation you add it is simply not possible to run a grid without conventional generators.
But of course they haven’t thought about any of that, why bother with the boring technicalities. If you just set an ambitious planned target and assemble “300000 diverse people who look like America” to do the job, the problem is basically solved already.
We Still need conventional coking coal to build wind mills . . .
Windmills are the ultimate in embedded costs and environmental destruction. Each weighs 1,688 tons (the equivalent of 23 houses) and contains 1,300 tons of concrete, 295 tons of steel (14.5 % Global CO2 is from concrete and steel), 48 tons of iron, 24 tons of fiberglass, and the hard to extract rare earths neodymium- Boron, praseodymium, and dysprosium. Each blade weighs 81,000 pounds and will last 15 to 20 years, at which time it must be replaced. We cannot recycle used blades.
There may be a place for these technologies, but first we must look beyond the myth of Zero Emissions. I predict EVs and windmills will be abandoned once the embedded environmental costs of making and replacing and operating them become public. Once it becomes Clear that 28 % of the Electricity is lost as HEAT between production of Electricity and having a fully charged battery . . . For that Electric Car.
I am trying to do my part with these comments. Bringing ‘The Embedded Costs’ of Going Green to light, but those who never ask . . . will never know . . . Then there are the ‘Greenies’ who do not want to Know ?