- Manchin said in a recent interview with Newsy that a deal could be struck on climate spending provisions.
- Biden has also said he believes an agreement is within reach on $500 billion in new climate initiatives.
- Democrats are beginning to revisit Build Back Better after Manchin torpedoed it a month ago.
Investments in the climate might be the easiest thing Sen. Joe Manchin and his Democratic colleagues can agree on when it comes to President Joe Biden's stalled $2 trillion social and climate spending legislation.
In an interview with Newsy, the conservative West Virginia Democrat reiterated his belief that a deal could be struck on the climate and clean energy provisions of Biden's Build Back Better plan.
"In climate, I think there's a lot of areas in climate that we agree," he said. "The only thing I've ever said: You cannot eliminate your way to a cleaner environment."
—Nathaniel Reed (@ReedReports) January 26, 2022
He added that he wanted to "innovate" with new spending on technology.
It comes as Biden and Democrats refocus on salvaging parts of the bill that could get Manchin's support. Without his vote, Senate Democrats can't approve the plan over fierce GOP opposition. The president has suggested pieces of the plan would move in "chunks."
A substantial sum in the package is devoted to a set of tax credits to ease the transition away from fossil fuels towards cleaner energy sources like wind and solar.
Biden has said he believes that portion of the package could form the basis of a slimmer bill. "I think it's clear that we would be able to get support for the $500 billion plus for energy and the environment," he said last week.
The West Virginia senator dashed Democrats' hopes to pass President Joe Biden's sweeping climate and social spending bill before the end of 2021, citing concerns with inflation and certain provisions within the bill, like the expanded monthly child tax credit. But as negotiations are restarting early this year, Manchin signaled he's on board with a major Democratic priority: combating the climate crisis.
This wasn't the first time Manchin had signaled support for climate provisions. He told reporters earlier this month that "the climate thing is one that we probably can come to agreement much easier than anything else," even though he withheld support for the Clean Electricity Performance Program (CEPP) — part of Biden's initial $555 billion climate proposal that would help the US meet its goals of cutting carbon emissions in half by 2030.
As Insider has previously reported, the climate crisis is dire and the need for clean energy investments is urgent. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration found earlier this month that wildfires, floods, and other natural disasters killed 688 Americans last year and cost the US $145 billion.
This followed a Washington Post analysis that found 40% of Americans were hit by climate disasters last year, with the vast majority of that group experiencing heat waves. Even if the country takes actions to remedy the warming climate, the United Nations said in August that some of global warming's effects will be "irreversible for centuries to millennia."