"Lawmakers who support real climate solutions should reject this deal until the fossil fuel handouts are removed." "Therefore, we're calling on you to fulfill your promise to lead on climate, starting with denying approvals for the Mountain Valley Pipeline, rejecting all new federal fossil fuel leases onshore, in the Gulf of Mexico, in Alaska, and everywhere else, and preventing any fast-tracked permits for fossil fuel projects." "There can be no new fossil fuel leases, exports, or infrastructure if we have any hope of preventing ever-worsening climate crises, catastrophic floods, deadly wildfires, and more-all of which are ripping across the country as we speak," the letter continues, echoing numerous expert warnings about the need to keep polluting fuels in the ground to have a chance of averting the planetary emergency's most dire impacts. "Oil, gas, and coal production are the core drivers of the climate and extinction crises," states the letter. The Center for Biological Diversity, Climate Justice Alliance, Food & Water Watch, Greenpeace USA, Indigenous Environmental Network, Our Revolution, the Sunrise Movement, and other groups behind Friday's letter to Biden and Schumer wrote that "any approval of new fossil fuel projects or fast-tracking of fossil fuel permitting is incompatible with climate leadership." carbon emissions by 40% by 2030 while others have been more critical and vowed to fight the bill's most harmful provisions. Some progressive campaigners have cautiously welcomed news of the spending deal that Manchin and Schumer say would reduce peak U.S. While the IRA would unleash $369 billion in climate-related public funding over the next decade in the form of subsidies for clean energy production and tax incentives for carbon capture and other contentious technologies-an unprecedented sum yet a miniscule fraction of the nation's annual military spending-it also includes significant giveaways to Manchin's allies and financial backers in the oil and gas industry. Joe Manchin (W-Va.) has agreed to support a filibuster-proof economic and climate package known as the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). The letter calling on Biden and Schumer to "hold the line against fossil fuel expansion" comes in the wake of this week's surprise announcement that conservative Democratic Sen. "Permitting new fossil fuel projects will further entrench us in a fossil fuel economy for decades to come-and constitutes a violent betrayal of your pledge to combat environmental racism and destruction," more than 350 organizations representing millions of people wrote to Biden and Schumer, the powerful Democrat from New York.Īny new fossil fuel projects, the groups added, will "lock workers into a dying industry and delay the growth in sectors that will support jobs of the future." "The unnecessary fracked gas Mountain Valley Pipeline and further drilling in Alaska and the Gulf are not foregone conclusions." A climate justice coalition sent a letter Friday imploring President Joe Biden and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to reject any proposed fossil fuel expansion during negotiations over the latest iteration of the Democratic Party's reconciliation bill.
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