Senator Joe Manchin’s recent moves (DW.Va.) raise new doubts that he will agree to any legislative package on President Biden’s agenda, deepening Democrats’ concerns about what they will be able to provide voters with before the election. day.
Several Democratic senators say they are increasingly worried about the prospect of Manchin ever giving the green light for a budget reconciliation package that would prevent Republicans from blocking Biden’s legislative agenda with a Senate filibuster.
Asked how confident he was that Manchin would join the reconciliation bill, a Democratic senator who asked for anonymity to comment on declining chances said he had “less every day”.
A second Democratic senator said the one-on-one talks with Manchin, whether led by senior White House officials or Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (DN.Y.), were not working.
“This is the period for creation or interruption,” the legislator said, referring to the current five-week working period, which lasts until the weekend of Remembrance Day.
“I think we need to have time to come to Jesus,” the source said. The back room approach doesn’t work.
Democratic senators received little information about where negotiations on the budget reconciliation package are taking place during their lunchtime meeting on Tuesday, the first time a group of Democrats has met since returning from a two-week holiday in April.
Manchin missed much of this meeting.
Two days later, reporters asked him and GOP senators about the allegation in a new book that Manchin said he would have been willing to join the Republican Party if Senator John Thun (SD) had been the GOP leader in the Senate instead of Senator Mitch McConnell. (R-Ky.).
Manchin told reporters on Thursday that Republican colleagues often teased him about changing parties, and he never seriously considered leaving the Democratic Party.
“I receive this question every day. These are all my friends on both sides of the aisle, “Manchin said when asked about the report that he said he could change parties if Tune was the Republican leader in the Senate.
“The bottom line is that I’m a West Virginia Democrat. I’m not a Democrat from Washington. And I’m not a very liberal person. I’m more of a centrist. I am fiscally responsible and socially compassionate, “he added.
The jokes between Manchin and his Republican counterparts raise doubts that he will not sign a partisan reconciliation package at any time this year to introduce key elements of Biden’s domestic agenda with 50 Democrats and no Republican.
Democrats also noted that Manchin’s opposition to various democratic initiatives seems to be playing well at home.
In addition to opposing the progress of Biden’s Build Back Better program, Manchin opposed Biden’s nomination of Nira Tanden as head of the Office of Management and Budget, and Sarah Bloom Ruskin as serving as deputy chairman of the Federal Reserve.
Manchin’s approval rating for West Virginia’s work has jumped 17 points from a year ago, according to a Morning Consult poll released Monday. Fifty-seven percent of West Virginians now approve of Manchin’s work, up from just 40 percent after the first three months of 2021.
The rise in popularity in West Virginia, a state that Donald Trump holds 69 percent of the vote in 2020, makes him less likely to reverse the course and support a budget reconciliation package that passes without a single Republican vote. , his Democrat colleagues fear.
In addition to Democrats’ concerns, Manchin convened a bipartisan group of senators in a bid to adopt a package of energy proposals that will also tackle climate change by 60 votes on a regular basis.
This is a worrying development for Democratic senators, who hoped that the climate and renewable energy package would be a key part of the budget reconciliation package. Now the climate and energy part of the reconciliation package is competing with what Manchin is trying to negotiate with a group of Republicans.
Senator Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), Who attended the first bipartisan meeting convened by Manchin on energy and climate proposals, told The Hill that there was “a lot of overlap” with what was being discussed for inclusion in the package. for reconciliation.
Senator Brian Shatz (D-Hawaii), a leading Senate supporter of the Climate Change Council, also attended Monday’s meeting, which included Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman Tom Carper (D-Del.) And Senator Mark Warner. (D-Va). ) and John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.) along with Republican Senator Kevin Kramer (ND).
Shatz declined to comment on the meeting, but the very fact that he was invited shows that Manchin hopes to tackle some of his colleagues’ climate priorities on a regular basis instead of agreeing on a budget.
Asked if the bipartisan energy package he is drafting is intended to replace the strategy of moving the energy and climate package into a budget reconciliation bill, Manchin told The Hill: “We are trying to get information from everyone. I want information. ”
Pressed over whether climate and energy legislation should go beyond the budget conciliation process, Manchin signaled he would like to follow the same bipartisan approach he used last year to help negotiate a $ 1 trillion infrastructure bill , which adopted the Senate with 69 votes.
“Everything we can do along the lines of the infrastructure bill would be great if we could,” he said. “We are determined to do something on the path to reliable energy so that we have reliable energy for our country.”
He explained that he wanted to make sure that what he saw as more reliable fossil fuels would not be stopped too quickly as the nation made the transition to cleaner renewable fuels.
“I want to work in a bipartisan way,” he said.
However, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (DR.I.), a leading advocate for carbon reduction, predicts that any package agreed with Republicans will not go far beyond the goals of the Biden Build Back Better program.
“It seems very unlikely at this point that something that involves Republicans is serious about the climate,” he said.
Manchin says the energy package should support fossil fuel production as well as renewable energy, a way that puts it in conflict with Whitehouse and other Democrats, who see the reconciliation package as their best way to reduce it over the next ten years. global warming of emissions to a large extent.
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“We need a two-way system. You have to have the climate and you have to have the reliability of the fossils, “he told reporters on Thursday, quoting rumors of an attempt to quickly displace the nation from relying on oil, natural gas and coal.” You can’t eliminate each other before.
“I am going two ways. I want to make sure that we have reliability and are energy independent. “I want to make sure we do everything we can to improve the climate,” he added.
Manchin has scheduled two more meetings next week with the bipartisan group to draft a compromise energy bill, according to a Republican senator invited to attend.
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