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Charles Knapp's avatar

Nice to see a true compromise that probably reflects where the “average” American is on these issues. Common sense suggest a transition period from fossil fuels to green energy and that seems to be what this bill provides.

As to whether it was a deliberate ploy to sucker the GOP or the result of the usual chaotic approach to certain legislation, I vote for the latter. While the temptation is always to find intentionality in certain actions, because that reassures us that someone is in control, most often life just works opportunistically and you jump on what suddenly materializes before you.

No one has yet explained the carried interest tax treatment for the compensation of equity managers who don’t share in the investment risk. It always seemed a giveaway.

As a final observation, it’s nice to see that the Black Lung Fund is permanently funded. Now how about doing that for our veterans who are casualties to the burn pits. Even the current proposal lasts but ten years.

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Roger Boyd's avatar

The Democratic Party is a deeply conservative organization when it comes to political economy, as against the political theatre of woke causes (and an abortion issue that it could have legislated on numerous times but decided not to), and functions to slowly smother any real left economic radicalism. The fact that this turned out as a "bribe business to cut emissions a little" process is therefore not surprising - lets remember that Obama was proud of helping the fracking industry. Manchin was just an excuse for the DNC to do what it always wanted to do, with a President who has been deeply corrupted to big business the whole of his political career.

The statistics in your article about US emissions are incorrect, as they grossly underestimate actual methane leaks (all official US GHG data does) which are twice the reported amounts given independent measurements - at which rate natural gas is a worse emitter than coal.

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