We need to be told the true climate cost of Schumer and Manchin’s pipeline side deal

Joe Manchin, left, and Chuck Schumer are respectively Congress’s top recipients of utility and fossil fuel industry campaign cash. Photograph: Patrick Semansky/AP

As climate change batters America with heatwaves, droughts and floods, lawmakers should be asking a simple question about any bill: does it increase or decrease the greenhouse gas emissions that are fueling the ecological emergency?

Somehow, though, that query is still not being asked right now in Washington, even as Democratic leaders are promising to advance a bill to gut environmental laws and expedite oil and gas pipelines.