The radical left is furious that “climate action” from President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better agenda is going nowhere fast.
Publishing a video attacking Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), on Monday, far-left Evergreen Action slammed the Senate leader for not doing enough to wrangle Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) into voting for the massive tax-and-spend bill. Evergreen Action, a global warming advocacy group, claims to be “leading the fight to put bold climate action at the top of America’s agenda.”
“In his own words, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer promised the Senate will ‘forcefully, insistently, and urgently’ address climate as the greatest threat to our country. But after more than a year of Democratic control in Washington, he still has yet to deliver,” Evergreen Action executive director Jamal Raad told the Hill.
Senator Chuck Schumer attends the Back the Thrive Agenda press conference at the Longworth Office Building on September 10, 2020, in Washington, DC. (Photo by Jemal Countess/Getty Images for Green New Deal Network).
The Green New Deal-like initiatives were stalled in 2021 when Manchin announced his opposition to the package due to 40-year-high inflation. The Democrat-led Congress and Biden have since dropped the massive agenda item. Biden did not even mention it in the State of the Union address.
Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) talks very briefly with reporters after walking out of the Senate Chamber at the U.S. Capitol on September 30, 2021, in Washington, DC. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images).
Regardless of Biden’s silence on his capstone plan, many radical House Democrats will not let his failed agenda die silently. Eighty-nine Democrats, including six committee chairmen, wrote Biden a letter Monday demanding the “climate action” within Build Back Better be revived.
“The more than $555 billion in climate investments in the House-passed Build Back Better Act can serve as the building block to restart negotiations,” the letter reads.
The letter notes a division in the Democrat party. What was once thought of as a midterm election strategy, Biden’s Build Back Better agenda is no longer relevant to winning elections, midterm chief Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-NY) admitted last week.
Maloney had championed the agenda to defeat Republicans in November. “The scale and impact of the plan we are putting in place needs to show up in the family budgets and daily lives of the people we hope to win,” Maloney said about the legislation.
Maloney’s change of heart seems related to Manchin’s continued opposition to the legislation. On Thursday, data released by the Department of Labor indicated the consumer price index (CPI) rose 7.9 percent compared with a year ago. Prices grew 0.8 percent compared with the prior month.
February marked the ninth straight month of inflation above five percent.
As inflation continues to increase, so have energy prices. Gas prices last week soared to a record high five days in a row, fueling demands that America should not rely on foreign energy. Instead of unleashing American energy companies to produce more energy, Democrats have been quick to use high inflation and gas prices to push their Green New Deal-like policies.
Last week, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg promoted electric cars as a solution to dependence on foreign energy and high gas prices.
“Clean transportation can bring significant cost savings for the American people as well,” Buttigieg claimed. “So the people from rural to suburban to urban communities can all benefit from the gas savings of driving an EV.”
It is unclear how American workers are to afford expensive battery-powered cars while struggling with inflation. The White House has stated inflation will continue throughout 2022 and potentially past the midterms.
Until inflation subsides, Manchin’s willingness to spend massive amounts of taxpayer money seems unlikely, stalling the radical left’s “climate action” dreams.