U.S. Senate passes historic climate bill
The Senate passed the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 on Sunday, a $ 433 billion climate, energy, health, and tax bill that will set the United States on course to reduce its cumulative emissions roughly 40 percent, compared to 2005 levels, by 2030. Fifty Democratic senators voted for the bill, including centrists Joe Manchin, from West Virginia, and Kyrsten Sinema, from Arizona. Republican senators unilaterally opposed the legislation. Vice President Kamala Harris cast the tie-breaking vote.
In a statement, President Joe Biden said that the bill “makes the largest investment ever in combating the existential crisis of climate change.”
The Inflation Reduction Act, or IRA, came out of left field. Democratic leadership had been gunning to pass a climate bill since President Joe Biden’s very first months in office last year. But they immediately ran into roadblocks that seemed insurmountable. …