AMERICA IS Under Siege

[Gmenfan]

Senate Dems Facing Re-election Suddenly Find Religion on Biden Energy Excess

David Blackmon
Apr 18, 2024


It was a foregone conclusion that retiring West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin would vote to nullify a key plank in the Biden Green New Deal energy and climate agenda on Wednesday. Manchin has made a habit of opposing carefully picked aspects of that agenda over the past few years even though he folded like a cheap suit when he became the deciding vote on the Orwellian Inflation Reduction Act in August, 2021.

Everyone also knew it was likely that Kyrsten Sinema would vote her conscience on the provision given that she no longer has any hopes of being re-elected to her Arizona Senate seat this year. Like Manchin, Sinema has shown occasional displays of common sense on energy whenever it has suited her political fortunes. Unfortunately, she, like Manchin, threw her career prospects into the toilet when she sold out the country on the IRA.


What was not known until Wednesday’s vote was whether a) the GOP minority would remain unified, and b) any other Democrats seeking re-election would do the right thing for their respective states?

The regulatory action in question was, as reported by Nick Pope at the Daily Caller, “a Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) rule that critics have characterized as an effort to reduce the number of gas-powered cars on America’s roadways.” The regulation would require state transportation agencies to dramatically increase the cost of road projects by having to formulate emissions reduction plans for federal road projects in their states.

“Few things are more frustrating in government than unelected bureaucrats asserting authority they don’t have and foisting federal mediocrity on the excellence of states,” Republican North Dakota Sen. Kevin Cramer, who introduced the legislation, said from the Senate floor on Wednesday. “The Senate will take up my bipartisan resolution that overturns the Biden administration’s obviously illegal rule that requires state departments of transportation to measure CO2 tailpipe emissions then set declining targets for vehicles traveling on the highway systems of their perspective states.”

Fortunately for them, Montana Democrat Jon Tester and Ohio Dem Sherrod Brown, both of whom face tough battles for re-election this year, were given permission by Chuck Schumer to vote the right way for their constituents on this resolution once it became obvious it was going to pass.

While Tester and Brown will now go back to their states and brag to constituents how they stood up to the Biden administration for the energy industry that drives so much of their state economy, this is nonsense. These two guys would have gladly sold their state out again and voted in lockstep with Schumer’s dictates were it not an election year.

Tester and Brown are two of the very worst examples of finger-to-the-wind politicians. For them, every vote is a cynical political calculation on which they could go either way depending on which benefits them most, and what they are allowed to do by Schumer. They would never have been allowed to vote the way they did if Schumer needed their vote to kill the resolution, and they both would have been fine with that. They are completely devoid of principle and care nothing about what is best for the people or the country.

So, praise them if you want, but do it with a clear understanding of exactly what you’re praising.

That is all.

https://blackmon.substack.com/p/senate-dems-facing-re-election-suddenly?publication_id=712558&post_id=143708945&isFreemail=false&r=rd9j8&triedRedirect=true