{"id":39023,"date":"2022-08-08T22:19:23","date_gmt":"2022-08-09T04:19:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/colorado-democrats-environmental-groups-cheer-senate-passage-of-historic-climate-bill\/"},"modified":"2022-08-09T04:19:23","modified_gmt":"2022-08-09T04:19:23","slug":"colorado-democrats-environmental-groups-cheer-senate-passage-of-historic-climate-bill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/colorado-democrats-environmental-groups-cheer-senate-passage-of-historic-climate-bill\/","title":{"rendered":"Colorado Democrats, environmental groups cheer Senate passage of \u2018historic\u2019 climate bill"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Turbines
Turbines blow in the wind at an Xcel Energy wind farm on the border of Colorado and Wyoming south of Cheyenne, Wyo. (David Zalubowski\/Associated Press file)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The Senate\u2019s weekend passage of a $369 billion package<\/a> of spending to fight climate change is drawing cheers from environmental advocates and calls for the bill\u2019s swift adoption in the House of Representatives.<\/p>\n

The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, which also includes tax increases on corporations and health care spending, was approved on a 51-50 vote on Sunday, with Vice President Kamala Harris casting the deciding vote in a deadlocked Senate.<\/p>\n

The revival of the bill \u2013 a drastically scaled-down version of a $2.2 trillion package of climate and social spending sought by President Joe Biden and passed by the House last year \u2013 came after an unexpected reversal last month<\/a> from Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, whose opposition had previously appeared to doom climate action in the upper chamber.<\/p>\n

\"Bennet\"
Bennet<\/span>du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201cTen days ago, when I thought the climate provisions in the IRA were dead, my heart was broken,\u201d Sen. Michael Bennet, a Colorado Democrat who backed the bill, wrote on Twitter on Monday. \u201cI didn\u2019t know how to look my daughters in the eye and tell them we were once again going to do nothing about this urgent threat. Today, my heart is full.\u201d<\/p>\n

The compromise bill includes some bitter pills<\/a> for environmental groups to swallow, such as requirements for the federal government to expand offshore drilling and regulatory reforms that could speed up pipelines and other oil and gas projects. But its tax credits and subsidies for clean electricity generation, electric vehicles and other technologies could help reduce total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by about 40%<\/a> by 2030, according to independent estimates.<\/p>\n

Those projections roughly align with pledges under the 2015 Paris Agreement that are consistent with an average global temperature rise of about 2.1 to 2.4 degrees Celsius<\/a> by 2100. That\u2019s a far less dangerous scenario than the 3 to 4 degrees of global warming that once seemed likely without action.<\/p>\n

Without further action, however, even 2 to 2.5 degrees of temperature rise will lead to significantly greater harm<\/a> \u2013 in the form of deadly heat, drought, famine, sea level rise, extreme weather and other impacts \u2013 than the 1.5 degree target endorsed <\/a>by many scientists and environmental activists. Scientists warned <\/a>in 2018 that achieving that target would require \u201crapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society,\u201d but since then global emissions have continued to rise<\/a>.<\/p>\n

U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper, a Colorado moderate who reportedly played a key role<\/a> in brokering the compromise with Manchin, said in a news release that its passage will allow the U.S. to \u201chelp lead the planet into a clean energy economy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Hickenlooper\"
Hickenlooper<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201cThe Great Transition is here!\u201d Hickenlooper said. \u201cWe\u2019ll reduce carbon emissions 40% by the end of the decade. We\u2019ll save Colorado families hundreds of dollars on their energy bills and health care costs. All while reducing the deficit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Elise Jones, director of the Boulder-based Southwest Energy Efficiency Project, cited research <\/a>showing that the bill\u2019s incentives for EVs, rooftop solar panels and clean-heating technology could help a typical U.S. household save up to $1,800 per year on energy costs.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe urge the House to quickly move to final passage, and hope that President Biden will immediately sign the bill,\u201d Jones said in a statement. \u201cWe look forward to working with state and local leaders across our region to implement the bill and maximize its benefits.\u201d<\/p>\n

Democratic Rep. Joe Neguse of Lafayette, a member of the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis, said in a statement that the IRA is the \u201cmost significant climate legislation enacted in our country\u2019s history.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Senate\u2019s passage of the Inflation Reduction Act is truly historic,\u201d he said. \u201cI look forward to supporting this bill in the House of Representatives, and continue to be hopeful for its swift enactment.\u201d<\/p>\n

To read more stories from Colorado Newsline, visit www.coloradonewsline.com<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

$369 billion package is a scaled-down version of a $2.2 trillion proposal<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":39024,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[1030,738,781,481,28,25,1566],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-39023","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-environment","tag-environmental-issue","tag-environmental-politics","tag-gov-john-hickenlooper","tag-headlines","tag-u-s-sen-michael-bennet","tag-u-s-senate"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39023"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39023\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39023"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=39023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}