Sen. Joe Manchin III’s decision to oppose at least for now provisions in his party’s climate and social programs bill that would reduce fossil fuel emissions presents a dramatic but not necessarily fatal setback for the legislation and the prospect of averting what science contends will be a global climate catastrophe.
“I do not believe history will look kindly on this moment,” Julie McNamara, deputy policy director for climate and energy at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a nonpartisan advocacy group, said in an interview.
“It’s definitely a setback if the bill doesn’t go through,” Ben King, associate director for the U.S. energy team at Rhodium Group, an independent research firm, said by phone. “It’s not the nail in the coffin. But it makes the path much more narrow and much more difficult. It makes every other thing have to go right.”
