Last week, Congress managed to successfully pass a spending bill that will keep the government funded through September. There wasn’t even much squabbling or threatening to shut down the government, though funding for the ongoing fight against COVID did get stripped. While the headlines focused largely on the financial aid that will be sent to Ukraine as a result of the deal, there was a secret winner within the 2,700-page bill: the environment.
The Biden administration ran on making climate change a priority, but whenever the president tries to address the matter head-on, he runs into resistance (usually in the form of Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin, last seen concern-trolling about car batteries). So, Biden and his allies took a different approach this time around, hiding some essential funding for addressing climate change in the earmarks of the latest spending bill.
