hi folks,
when i send these emails, they're usually oriented around action. in this case, the action i recommend is:
* call your federal house representative, and ask that they vote AGAINST the bi-partisan infrastructure deal unless there's agreement on the reconciliation package
* call your federal senators, and demand action on the reconciliation bill, including specifically all climate-change-related spending there
i've done these actions and logged them in my activism log: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1GcwD94b35Qk8j4D4mU5JuSbWdhsEYsWZ60Zr...
i recommend you keep one of these, and also there are phone numbers there in case your representatives are also my representatives!
WHY? WHAT'S HAPPENING?
this is a really critical moment. basically, in the next week, the US actually does something on climate change, or we won't. actually, in the next week the US might shut down the government and default on it's debt. yeah, shit's pretty crazy right now.
the bipartisan infrastructure deal was a thing that D and R could agree on in washington, and includes very traditional infrastructure funding -- roads, bridges. there are votes to pass it in the senate. however, the house progressive caucus is threatening to withhold their votes on that bill, which might cause it to fail in the house, unless both that bill and the reconciliation bill are brought to vote at the same time.
the reconciliation bill, which you've probably seen under it's $3.5T price tag, includes the rest of biden's agenda, including funding for climate change, expanded healthcare, etc... it's a reconciliation bill because otherwise it would be filibustered by senate Rs, and so it needs 50 senate Ds plus harris's tie-breaker to pass. the dems can't agree among themselves about this bill -- in particular, joe manchin of west virgina and kyrsten sinema of arizona are balking at all sorts of stuff. manchin, who is from a coal state (fun fact, there are maybe 20k coal miners, loosely defined as anyone who has anything directly to do with mining, in wv, a state of 2M people) and is also head of the senate energy and natural resources committee, has general objections. sinema seems particularly upset about giving medicare the ability to negotiate drug prices with pharmaceutical companies.
the reconciliation bill includes funding for the federal government, so if *something* isn't done, the government will shut down on friday. the ideal outcome would be passing the reconciliation package. possibly, a continuing resolution could be passed to temporarily fund the government to avoid a shutdown.
in the meantime, the US has hit it's debt ceiling, a provision which limits how much the government can borrow (by issuing bonds). the debt ceiling was raised 3 times in bi-partisan votes during the last administration, but now senate Rs are threatening to filibuster the vote unless some unspecified demands for more bi-partisanship are met. if we don't raise the debt ceiling by early october, the treasury will be unable to service (pay interest on) it's existing bonds, and will be in default.
in short, everything is a cluster-fuck and it's all happening right now.
i've been checking for updates here: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2021/sep/29/democrats-infrastructur...