The climate disaster
As heat waves hit Europe and North America, showing the real-time effects of global warming, don't hold your breath for the United States to do anything about it.
You've heard this one before: West Virginia moderate Sen. Joe Manchin --
whom Democrats need to provide a 50th vote to pass Biden's massive clean energy plan -- just got cold feet again. Manchin comes from a coal state, but says his real problem with the plan is that more government spending could spike inflation beyond the 9.1% year-on-year jump that happened in June.
Most of the rest of the Democratic Party is furious. Manchin just keeps holding up Biden's agenda. But without him, Democrats wouldn't have a Senate majority. Though his state is Trump country, Manchin won his seat for Democrats in 2018 -- and if he decides to run again, nothing will help him more than to say he kept the liberals at bay. Considering that the US could lead the world in mitigating climate disaster, the future of billions of non-Americans may rest on this one man.
We're running out of time for climate legislation. If Republicans take the House, the path to doing so will be blocked, and a new GOP president in 2024 would be highly unlikely to do anything. So it could be years before there's another chance — by which time other major powers may no longer be willing to take the necessary steps to keep global temperatures below disastrous levels.
Biden says he'll use executive power to save the planet. But any new regulations he brings in with a stroke of his pen could be wiped out in the first few hours of a Republican president's term.
