Biden urges Senate to pass Build Back Better bill without climate measures

Joe Biden on Friday urged Senate Democrats to pass a drastically slimmed-down version of his Build Back Better package after Joe Manchin signalled he was not willing to back measures aimed at tackling climate change.

The president’s message follows months of painstaking negotiations between Democratic leaders and Manchin, the centrist Democratic senator from West Virginia, who late on Thursday told party leaders that he would not support climate and clean energy provisions in the bill, nor measures to raise taxes on the wealthy and corporations because of inflation.

The objections from Manchin threatened to sink Biden’s flagship economic and social spending package, which has been stalled for months by fierce Democratic party infighting.

On Friday, Biden pleaded with lawmakers to pass crucial healthcare and drug pricing portions of the bill over the summer, including proposals that would allow the US government to negotiate directly with pharmaceutical companies over drug prices for the first time under the publicly run Medicare insurance programme. Another measure places caps on how much patients can spend in a year on treatments for which they are not covered.

“The Senate should move forward, pass it before the August recess, and get it to my desk so I can sign it,” Biden said. 

If lawmakers would not act on climate change in the bill, Biden said he would take “strong executive action”.

Manchin’s decision comes days after inflation figures showed a 9.1 per cent annual rise in consumer prices, a fresh 40-year high, which has opened the door for the Federal Reserve to make another big upward adjustment to interest rates later this month.

However, Manchin indicated he would support the plan to lower the cost of prescription drugs and extend Affordable Care Act subsidies that are set to expire at the end of the year.

In an interview with a West Virginia radio host on Friday morning, Manchin said he told Chuck Schumer, the top Democrat in the Senate, that it was “not prudent” to pass the climate and energy provisions at this time. West Virginia is among the top five states for coal and gas production in the US, according to the Energy Information Administration.

Biden’s climate proposals included tax incentives for producers and consumers of clean energy, in a bid to speed up the energy transition, and also for buyers of electric vehicles.

Manchin said he told Schumer: “The one thing you know you can get done [in July] is run a piece of legislation on reducing drug prices, letting Medicare negotiate.”

The original $3.5tn Build Back Better plan was designed to overhaul the US social safety net and cement Biden’s progressive credentials. The House of Representatives passed a pared-back version of the bill last November, which included universal pre-school, large childcare subsidies and government negotiation over some drug prices. Much of this was paid for with tax increases for companies and high earners.