Federal Agency Staffers Tell Biden to Play Hardball With Manchin on Climate
Federal agency staffers and congressional office members have a message for President Joe Biden as his climate agenda languishes in the Senate: Ensure that fossil fuel industry ally Sen. Joe Manchin faces significant consequences for obstructing legislative progress.
In a letter first reported by The Lever on Monday, 165 staffers from federal health and environmental agencies and nearly 80 congressional offices urged Biden and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) to “strip Senator Manchin of his chairmanship of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, shut down the Mountain Valley Pipeline Project, eliminate the use of mountaintop removal and coal burning, and establish stringent water and air pollution standards.”
The letter marks the second time in two weeks that staffers on Capitol Hill have voiced anger and frustration over the federal government’s inaction in the face of a climate emergency that’s only getting worse, as evidenced by out-of-control wildfires and the record-shattering heatwaves scorching much of the Northern Hemisphere.
The latest letter, dated July 24 and currently circulating among government staffers, zeroes in on executive action that Biden can and must take following Manchin’s decision to block any new green energy funding as part of Democrats’ nascent reconciliation package, imperiling the nation’s hopes of reining in greenhouse gas emissions in time to avert climate catastrophe.
“Every day that you do not act, the climate crisis spirals further out of control,” warn the staffers. “The coming days represent our best opportunity to address the climate crisis and save countless lives with robust climate justice policy.”
A day after Manchin told Democratic leaders earlier this month that he wouldn’t accept any new climate funding as part of the emerging reconciliation bill, a chorus of environmental groups called on Biden to cancel the Mountain Valley Pipeline in response, a demand that agency staffers echoed in their letter.
Manchin has been an outspoken supporter of the pipeline, which would carry fracked gas from northwestern West Virginia to southern Virginia.
Originally published at Commondreams.org.
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