Manchin’s Shock Gives Clean Tech a Welcome Jolt
The US energy transition needs this new momentum.
Reconciled.
Photographer: Anna Moneymaker/Getty ImagesIt is not entirely clear what made Senator Joe Manchin move.
It wasn’t new inflation data; those numbers are almost two weeks away. Maybe he wonders whether Democrats might hold the Senate in November after all — and not look kindly on a recalcitrant chair of the energy committee? Perhaps President Joe Biden’s use of the “emergency” word on climate change, though not a declaration, made him think the White House might just go for broke on executive action. Possibly, the brinkmanship over the budget package was always just an elaborate ruse to get the Chips and Science Act over the line in the Senate — suspiciously just hours before Manchin announced his reconciliation with budget reconciliation.