Merkley Leads Senate Demand for Separate Vote on Manchin Deal

Environmental justice campaigners on Thursday welcomed a letter from eight senators demanding separate votes on a government funding resolution and Sen. Joe Manchin’s fossil fuel-friendly federal permitting bill.

The letter to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.)—who made a backroom deal with Manchin (D-W.Va.) on permitting reform to pass the Inflation Reduction Act—echoed a message that dozens of Democrats sent to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) last week.

The new call, spearheaded by Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), came a day after Manchin unveiled the full text of his Energy Independence and Security Act, which would restrict frontline communities’ input on fossil fuel projects and endorse the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP).

“We need more of this!” tweeted the People vs. Fossil Fuels coalition, sharing the letter. “Thank you to everyone who has signed below!”

Adrien Salazar of the Grassroots Global Justice Alliance similarly said, “Thank you to these senators for their solidarity with frontline communities against more fossil fuel pollution!”

The other signatories are Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Ben Cardin (D-Md.), Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).

“I fight for environmental justice, not fast-tracking fossil fuels,” Markey said Thursday. “Don’t make us choose between keeping the government open and keeping communities’ rights.”

Earlier this week, nearly 80 organizations had pressured Booker, Duckworth, and Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.)—the founding members of the Senate Environmental Justice Caucus—to reject Manchin’s “pernicious” bill.

Some of the senators’ constituents on Thursday thanked them for signing on to Merkley’s letter while residents of other states called on their elected officials to join the fight against the “dirty deal.”

Noting the “really strong set of powerful senators on this letter,” Pete Sikora of New York Communities for Change said that “it’s no good to push a climate and community-wrecking deal through for Manchin and oil and gas companies,” urging Schumer to “drop it.”

Rather thing heeding the mounting calls to decouple Manchin’s bill from the continuing resolution that Congress must pass before the end of the month to prevent a government shutdown, Schumer on Thursday started the process to hold a vote next Tuesday.

Pelosi on Thursday also reaffirmed her support for Manchin’s measure. “I said I support it, yes. I said that right from the start,” she said, according to The Hill. “There’s no question.”

Merkley’s letter highlights that environmental justice communities vehemently oppose Manchin’s proposal—which activists have made clear with a mass mobilization in the nation’s capital earlier this month and by getting arrested Thursday on Capitol Hill.

The lawmakers’ letter was released hours after more than 400 scientists and health experts delivered their own letter to Schumer and Pelosi, imploring the top congressional Democrats to “please find the courage” to “untether this wrongheaded legislation from the continuing resolution and prevent it from moving forward.”

Originally published at Commondreams.org.