Senator Kyrsten Sinema has finally weighed in on Joe Manchin and Chuck Schumer's
deal to propose legislation that is likely to go through many changes.
Some progressives are celebrating it
as legendary action to respond to climate change.
Others are more skeptical.
I follow under that category.
The proposed legislation, as it stands today,
includes incredibly modest tax hikes.
Things like closing the carried interest loophole, carried interest, something
that overwhelmingly benefits hedge fund managers and private equity goons.
It would do something about those loopholes to ensure that these
individuals get taxed similar to how ordinary people working for
wages, working for salaries, get taxed.
Again, incredibly modest because it only impacts some,
like a tiny portion of really wealthy people.
It includes some negotiations on pharmaceutical drugs, but
not all pharmaceutical drugs, okay?
And it also includes some money that would be appropriated for
investment into renewable energies.
But there's also a huge problem in that it provides all sorts of goodies for
fossil fuel companies, which I've been talking about.
I'm gonna talk about that further.
But what is Sinema upset about?
What is she raising a red flag on when it comes to this legislation?
She doesn't wanna raise taxes on the rich.
The number one thing she's brought up according to Manu Raju over at
CNN is the closing of the carried interest loophole.
Because we all know who her donors are.
We all know who she sold out to even though she ran as this
fire breathing progressive.
No, she got a little tasty taste of that cash, she loves that cash.
So she's got to do right by the small group of billionaires who
are upset over the thought of having to pay their fair share in
taxes by closing the carried interest loophole.
So my prediction, along with the prediction of other incredibly smart
individuals who aren't brain-dead and have been paying attention to politics.
Is that the final bill after it goes through the process of debates and
negotiations will probably strip out many of the good provisions
that progressives are trying to celebrate today.
I have no doubt that that is what the end result will be.
It's going to be similar to what happened to Biden's infrastructure plan,
which by the way, started off as one massive piece of legislation that included
both social spending and also funding for physical infrastructure.
Biden decided curiously enough to split that up into two bills ensuring
that the corporate handout part of his proposal would pass easily, and
the social spending would be completely decimated, cut out entirely.
No universal pre-K, no permanent child tax credit,
no free community and public college.
I mean, the list goes on and on, no funding for elder care,
no help with child care.
All of those social spending provisions got cut out of
the final piece of legislation.
And that is exactly what's gonna happen with whatever you might think we should be
celebrating today with this deal that was struck between Manchin and Chuck Schumer.
So let's talk a little bit more about what this means for
the climate activists who are excited, and they should be excited that
there's finally some money being dedicated to if this passes the climate emergency.
Well, there are other elements to this that I think are being under report and
I wanna share it with you.
Because the real question is, will the bad outweigh the good will
the positive climate provisions be outweighed or
mitigated by the negative pro fossil fuel provisions.
I'm just gonna give you the details as reported by Common Dreams and
Bloomberg Law.
Bloomberg, not a leftist organization, Bloomberg law, okay?
You can decide for yourselves, okay?
Maybe I'm being too harsh on Democrats.
Who knows?
We'll see.
The legislation whose scope and ambitions were dictated by fossil fuel industry ally
Senator Joe Manchin, includes components that are helpful to our business.
Rich Walsh of Valero, a fossil fuel company said during the fossil fuel
giant's earnings call on Thursday referring to tax
credits in the 725-page bill that could benefit the company.
Homeboy's real excited.
He's like [SOUND] tax goodies.
We're getting more.
That doesn't sound like the appropriate response to a climate emergency, but
let me continue.
The bill if passed, would tie wind and
solar development to oil and gas lease sales.
That language is expected to undermine the Biden administration's plans to
expand renewable energy on federal lands and waters.
As well as greatly complicate plans to draw down oil and
gas production that contributes directly to the climate crisis.
But there's more.
Okay, so how would this work?
Now, look Manchin as we all know,
financially benefits from the fossil fuel industry.
He loves it.
He would never sacrifice that.
And he's made that very clear.
So it shouldn't surprise anyone that in order to get mansion to play ball without,
by the way, using any sticks.
Because God forbid Democratic leadership ever go after Joe Manchin with sticks.
All he gets is carrots.
I mean, you got Bugs Bunny running the Senate, running the country,
all he gets is carrots, okay?
They'll never attack him, but they'll keep giving him carrots with the hope
that maybe just maybe they can pass this dismantle decimated piece of legislation
that ends up benefiting fossil fuel companies more than our environment.
But let me continue.
The proposed legislation would block the Interior Department
from issuing any wind and solar developments
right of way unless it holds it first holds oil and gas lease sales.
Onshore, the department would have to offer 2 million acres of
federal land for lease annually.
Let's pause right there.
Do you guys understand that two million acres of federal land annually?
Federal land meaning it belongs to the federal government,
meaning it belongs to us, we the people.
But we won't be benefiting from that federal land, in fact,
that federal land will not be utilized for abortion access for
women who end up being denied that care because they live in a red state.
Biden's administration said no we can't do that.
We can't offer abortions on federal land.
But what we can do with our federal land is offer fossil fuel companies
the opportunity to rape and pillage that land for their own personal profit to
the detriment of all of us, to the detriment of our environment.
Okay, great.
But let me continue with that graphic.
The department would have to offer 2 million acres of federal land for
lease annually or half of all the land nominated for leasing and
hold a lease sale within 120 days of issuing any renewables right of way.
Do you guys understand what that means?
That means, if we're gonna do anything that helps out
companies that are focusing their energy on wind and solar.
We have to ensure that we give fossil fuel companies all these goodies
before renewable energy companies get any help from us.
That is what that means.
Let me continue.
Offshore, that was just on shore.
That was just onshore.
Let's talk about offshore.
Offshore, the department would have to offer at least 60 million
acres of federal waters in an oil and gas lease sales in the year
prior to leasing any waters for offshore wind development.
You guys get the point here and by the way,
this is how the bill is written today.
It is likely to get worse after people like Kyrsten Sinema are through with it.
Let me continue though.
So you have an individual who serves
as the president of the Western Energy Alliance, okay?
Her name is Kathleen, she got some wind of this deal between Manchin and
Schumer, and she's really excited.
Okay, she represents major fossil fuel companies.
Here's what she says, this provision was quite a pleasant surprise,
said Kathleen Sgamma, president of the Western Energy Alliance,
which represents oil and gas producers operating on federal lands.
The alliance sued the Biden administration to force it to proceed
with quarterly onshore lease sales.
The bill forces them not to neglect oil and natural gas.
And so you might be wondering well, all right?
But why would Manchin care about oil and natural gas?
Like, does he really profit from any of that?
Doesn't he just profit from coal.
Now you're, all right, he does profit from coal to the tune of half a million dollars
a year from his personal investments in a coal company known as Inner Systems.
We've done extensive reporting on that.
But he also has a vested interest in oil and gas, and
I'll give you a specific example right now.
The bill would attempt to clear the way for
the approval of the Mountain Valley Pipeline, which would transport
Appalachian shale gas about 300 miles from West Virginia to Virginia.
This pipeline is a key priority of Manchin's.
In fact, Manchin has made clear that he views
approving the Mountain Valley Pipeline as a top priority.
Gee, I wonder if he could maybe have some donors involved with that project.
Maybe that's why it's a bit of a priority for him.
Supporters have characterized it as a way to help make
the United States an exporter.
Let me repeat that one more time.
An exporter of liquefied natural gas,
which the United States is sending to Europe amid the war in Ukraine.
So when you hear all of these pleasant little stories
about why we need to expand drilling for gas and
oil in the United States to make us energy independent,
just understand that that's BS.
Because these natural resources,
these fossil fuels don't belong to us, all right?
They belong to these fossil fuel companies who are looking to sell
to the highest bidder.
So yeah, of course they're looking to export.
In fact, as it stands today, even before this bill passes,
even before Democrats, let me repeat Democrats assist
in expanding drilling for gas and natural oil.
I'm sorry, for oil and natural gas,
understand that we're already the top oil and
natural gas producer we're also the top exporter of oil and natural gas.
So the idea that no, we have to do this because Americans are suffering.
Americans are suffering and we just,
we don't want to fall prey to all these Petro States.
No, we love falling prey to Petro states.
Are you kidding me?
That's the reason why you have Joe Biden constantly kissing Saudi Arabia's ass.
And it's not gonna stop.
The reliance on fossil fuels will continue as long as
fossil fuel companies get to engage in unlimited
campaign donations, unlimited legalized bribery.
They run the country.
So the idea that we can get incredible change through legislation
when the foundation of this system is rotten to the core is laughable.
You don't have to be a genius.
Okay, people think that I'm just like, I'm anti-democrat,
and I'm like somehow pro-republican, I despise Republicans.
And when I say Republicans, I'm not talking about the voters,
I'm talking about Republican lawmakers.
They are a lost course, they've been bought-off for a long time.
My problem is that increasingly Democrats look more and
more like the Republican Party.
Their foreign policy is reminiscent of what we got during
George Bush's administration in the early 2000s.
Their love for the fossil fuel industry is pretty clear here,
and the idea that we should be celebrating this as it stands
today when it's already a pretty terrible bill.
I think says a lot about what the media's priority is because there's a lot
of pressure from the media to be celebratory in response to this.
But keep in mind this is before,
it's further watered down of some of the decent provisions.
Now, climate groups have been fighting the project that Joe Manchin is super
excited about.
They've opposed the project with a 2017 analysis by Oil Change International,
an advocacy group finding that the greenhouse gas emissions from
the Mountain Valley Pipeline would approximate 26 coal plants or
19 million passenger cars.
That's great.
And who's doing some positive advertising
to entice senator Sinema to vote against the bill.
But more importantly,
to vote against the provision that would increase taxes on the rich.
The Koch brother funded Americana for prosperity.
They put this ad out, let's take a quick look at that.
[SOUND].
Now, President Biden says they have a plan to fix it, and
then they go after this bill.
[SOUND].
And they just try to get Senator cinema to stop it.
But I want to be clear about what they want cinema to stop exactly because
they're not talking about the provisions that
are favorable to the fossil fuel companies.
They're specifically talking about the taxes because you go to
the YouTube version of that ad and that is what is written
right there plainly in the description box, no new taxes.
And guess what today?
Senator Sinema made it clear.
Not a big fan of closing the carried interest loophole.
So it's a prediction.
I could be wrong, but I would venture to say and predict that they will do away
with those incredibly modest tax increases that only impact the rich.
And they'll sell us pretty little stories about how they had to do away with it
because they were worried about increasing taxes on ordinary working Americans.
Even though those provisions do not increase taxes on ordinary Americans.
We've been through this a billion times before and there's no amount of
shaming that can come from the likes of washed up comedians like House Sparks.
That can convince me that this bill that provides massive handouts to fossil fuel
companies and
is likely to be stripped down of all its good provision is a good idea.
Especially, when we take a good hard look at what was promised to Democratic
voters in the very beginning of all of this.
All social spending programs that would have materially improved
the lives of countless Americans.
All of that stuff is gone.
It's not even up for discussion anymore, and we're supposed to celebrate.
I'm sorry that I have higher standards for the Democratic Party.
I apologize for that.
I was under the impression through the campaign messaging that we got from them
that they were actually gonna look out for the needs of American workers.
That they were gonna make Americans whole that they were gonna do something about
wealth and income inequality in this country.
That they were gonna offer assistance to women who wanna get back to work, but
they can't because they can't afford childcare.
That they were gonna fight to ensure that Medicare can do something that
they obviously should be able to do, which is negotiate for lower drug prices.
But it turns out that they never were serious about any of that.
They never fought for those things.
And the first thing they did was point to all the convenient excuses
that they had baked in to this disgusting corrupt system.
You can't complain about [SOUND] well,
this conservative Democrats, what can we do?
Stop endorsing them.
Stop sending your establishment's money to their campaigns.
There are ways to play hardball, but
I think it's telling when Democrats refuse to do it.
So if I'm the bad guy for being critical towards this week
sauce garbage that we keep getting sold by the Democratic Party, apologies.
If it offends anyone in the audience that I'm not telling you pretty little
tales about how wonderful this is.
Go watch House Sparks show, seriously.
I'm sure you'll enjoy it.
This ain't the show for you, I'm not gonna tell you lies.
Not interested in that, I could be making a lot more money doing just that.
But I decided to basically give that the cold shoulder to be able to do my job here
and tell you the truth about what this legislation and
other legislation actually entails.
So I know it's a cold, hard world, isn't it?
Sometimes you want to be told cute little stories, but
you're just not gonna get that here.
We deserve better.
Certainly, the people who went out there and canvassed and
worked hard to get these Democrats elected.
They deserve better.
That's it.
End of story.