Liberal Democratic senators say they’ll refuse to back any infrastructure package without a “guarantee” that aggressive climate provisions will also pass Congress, a fracture that could threaten the bipartisan deal being hashed out by their centrist colleagues.
“We’re saying that there absolutely has to be a guaranteed deal that climate is built into these infrastructure bills and that it matches the problem that has to be solved,” said Sen. Ed Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat and climate hawk, said during a news conference Tuesday.
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Markey, along with Oregon Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley, said he won’t support any infrastructure bill without certainty that President Joe Biden would also be signing aggressive climate and clean energy investments equivalent to what he proposed in his jobs plan into law.
The senators aren’t saying it all must be approved in one massive spending package. But Merkley said the two tracks, any bipartisan infrastructure effort and a Democrats-only climate bill, must be “welded together.” In other words, they are looking for at least 50 committed votes for a climate bill before any bipartisan infrastructure bill even goes to the Senate floor.
“We can haggle over what the process is maybe, but we can’t over what the end product is as it is leaving the Senate,” Markey added.
The two senators are echoing the frustrations many of their liberal colleagues in both the Senate and House have with the bipartisan infrastructure talks that are largely leaving out clean energy. That bipartisan deal, being primarily negotiated by a group of 10 centrist senators on either side of the aisle, is expected to include smaller energy provisions supporting such technologies as carbon capture and storage, nuclear power, and hydrogen that enjoy more Republican backing.
The deal will leave out, however, the more aggressive spending on renewable energy and electric vehicles that Biden has promised, as well as his pledge to require utilities to achieve carbon-free power by 2035.
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Markey and Merkley said Democratic leadership is equally as committed to ensuring that a major climate bill crosses the finish line this Congress. Markey said lawmakers should stay through August if they’re not able to strike a deal and pass the legislation before then.
“We’re telling you today we’re going to get this deal. Our leadership supports it. It absolutely has to happen,” Merkley said.
