Manchin’s industry-backed permitting reform defeated again
Progressive lawmakers in Congress and outside environmental campaigners celebrated a defensive victory overnight and into Wednesday after a much-maligned oil and gas industry giveaway was left out of the major military NDAA spending bill introduced for passage in the U.S. House.
The proposal of Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), the latest version of the Energy Security and Independence Act (ESIA) is permitting reform legislation for energy projects that critics have dubbed a “dirty deal” that would undermine progress to fight the climate emergency while exposing vulnerable communities to harmful impacts of new fossil fuel infrastructure.
After failure to ram the proposal through earlier this year, Manchin hoped to ram through approval of the fossil fuel industry-backed scheme that would undermine environmental protections and diminish the voices of frontline opponents opposed to damaging pipelines and similar projects by having it inserted into the must-pass National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).
But after weeks of campaigning by climate action groups and other progressive advocates—and indications that Manchin would not find the necessary Republican support in the Senate—the proposal was absent when the House version of the NDAA was unveiled late Tuesday.
According to Collin Rees, U.S. program manager at Oil Change International, in a statement early Wednesday: “Congress was right to heed environmental justice leaders and reject Sen. Manchin’s deadly fossil fuel giveaway for the second time in three months.”
Warning that the “dangerous legislation would do far more harm than good and be a deep stain on the climate legacy of any politician involved in its passage,” Reese said the political reality must be made clear to lawmakers going forward: “fossil fuel expansion is incompatible with climate action.”
Just ahead of the NDAA’s release on Tuesday, the Congressional Progressive Caucus officially announced its opposition to the permitting proposal, though individual members had been voicing objections to its inclusion for weeks.
Originally published at Commondreams.org.
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