You turn to us for voices you won't hear anywhere else.

Sign up for Democracy Now!'s Daily Digest to get our latest headlines and stories delivered to your inbox every day.

Sen. Manchin’s “Dirty Side Deal”: Climate Protesters Condemn Democrats’ Permitting Reforms

HeadlineSep 09, 2022

Hundreds of climate protesters rallied in Washington, D.C., Thursday to demand lawmakers reject changes to how the federal government grants permits for oil and gas projects. The activists say the reforms would weaken environmental laws, limit court challenges to oil and gas projects and clear the way for new pipelines, including the proposed Mountain Valley fracked gas pipeline in West Virginia. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer says he agreed to the permitting reforms to win the support of West Virginia Democratic Senator Joe Manchin for the Inflation Reduction Act, which President Biden has called the “biggest step forward on climate ever.” On Thursday, the White House said it supports the permitting reforms. Meanwhile, Vermont independent Senator Bernie Sanders took to the Senate floor to condemn what he called Senator Manchin’s “dirty side deal.”

Sen. Bernie Sanders: “We can listen to the fossil fuel industry and the politicians they pay, who are spending huge amounts of money on lobbying and campaign contributions to pass this dirty side deal, or we can listen to the scientists and the environmental community, who are telling us loudly and clearly to reject this side deal and eliminate the $15 billion in tax breaks and subsidies Congress is already providing to big oil and gas companies each and every year.”

The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.

Non-commercial news needs your support

We rely on contributions from our viewers and listeners to do our work.
Please do your part today.
Make a donation
Top