Saturday, August 20, 2022

SojoMail - The largest climate bill ever is bittersweet

SojoMail

Three weeks ago, it seemed impossible that this Congress and this president would be able to get anything significant and lasting done to confront climate change. But this week, President Joe Biden signed major climate legislation — the Inflation Reduction Act — into law.

It’s a bittersweet moment.

The sweet: In late July, more than seven months after Sen. Joe Manchin III (D.-W.Va.) publicly opposed a major climate bill, Manchin and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D.-N.Y.) caught me and most of Washington by surprise with the news they had reached an agreement. The act contains the largest investment Congress has ever passed to combat climate change. Experts estimate that by 2030, the act will have helped reduce U.S. carbon pollution to 40 percent below 2005 levels. The bill will also lower health care and drug costs for seniors and about 13 million low- and middle-income Americans. The bill will be paid for by taxing more large corporations and wealthy individuals, ensuring they pay closer to their fair share in taxes. These are meaningful, hard-won accomplishments, especially for advocates and faith leaders who kept pressuring Congress, even when hope seemed lost.

Then the bitter: To overcome political stalemate and partisan opposition, lawmakers cut out much of the bill’s original vision — a vision that would have transformed some of our nation’s most vulnerable families and communities. The original Build Back Better package, which had been significantly shaped by the Congressional Black Caucus, would have put in place some of the most pro-family and racially and economically just policies within a generation, creating an economy in which all American families would better be able to flourish. From the expansion of the Child Tax Credit to guaranteeing parental medical leave to child care, pre-K education, housing assistance, maternal health, and more.

Weeks like these call for two underrated spiritual disciplines: lament and thanksgiving. 

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