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US Senate pushes big bill to tackle climate change: Bipartisan infrastructure bill vs $3.5 trillion budget plan

Aug 28, 2021

The U.S. Senate passed two important budget bills to address climate change in August 2021. What are the contents of the "Bipartisan Infrastructure Act" and the "$3.5 trillion budget plan" related to climate change? What are the two bills? the difference?

In order to achieve the goal of achieving 100% clean energy and net-zero emissions in the United States by 2050, President Biden signed a number of executive orders to address climate change, and then at the Climate Leaders Summit held on April 22, 2021, President Biden committed to 2030. Annual U.S. greenhouse gas emissions fell 50 to 52 percent from 2005 levels. Recently, the U.S. Senate passed two important budget bills in August 2021, namely the "Bipartisan Infrastructure Act" and the "$3.5 trillion Budget Plan". The former mainly focuses on the construction of hardware infrastructure, while the latter focuses on Create jobs, mitigate the impact of climate change and strengthen social safety nets. It can be seen that the determination of the United States to combat climate change is evident in both the diplomatic and domestic affairs.

Bipartisan Infrastructure Act

On August 10, 2021, the U.S. Senate passed the "Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act" (HR 3684) with 69 votes in favor and 30 against. Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill, which projects total spending of about $1.2 trillion over eight years, including about $550 billion in new spending for roads and bridges, railroads, transportation, ports, airports, power grids , water supply system, high-speed network and other priority national infrastructure projects. (See Table 1) The bill has now been submitted to the House of Representatives for consideration.

Table 1 List of spending items related to climate change in bipartisan infrastructure bills

Although the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill has been sent to the House for consideration, it is not expected to be voted on in the House immediately. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the House won't vote on an infrastructure bill until the Senate simultaneously passes a $3.5 trillion budget mediation bill. The move put pressure on the Senate to also pass the budget mediation bill and ensure that the bill's high Democratic priorities, such as social welfare, climate and health insurance, are allocated budgets along with some of the spending items in the bipartisan infrastructure bill.

Biden administration's $3.5 trillion budget plan

In addition to the "Bipartisan Infrastructure Act", Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer went further in pursuit of a new $3.5 trillion annual budget plan announced on August 9, which is different from the "bipartisan" The Infrastructure Act's budget is primarily for hard infrastructure, while the program focuses on "human infrastructure," with priorities for expanding health care coverage, preschool education, and providing paid family care leave Governance programs such as sick leave, climate change mitigation and household tax breaks. The bill may not have bipartisan support in the Senate, but Democrats intend to use "reconciliation " to give the budget a chance to pass a simple majority without the support of Republican senators .

Ultimately, on August 11, 2021, by a vote of 50 in favor to 49 against, the U.S. Senate passed "a budget for Congress to prepare the U.S. government's fiscal year 2022 and establish appropriate measures for fiscal years 2023 to 2031. A concurrent resolution setting forth the congressional budget for the United States Government for fiscal year 2022 and setting forth the appropriate budgetary levels for fiscal years 2023 through 2031, S. Con. Res. 14, which is The $3.5 trillion new annual budget plan, in addition to identifying total spending, taxes, surplus or deficit and debt, directs committees to propose amendments to the bill to change federal spending, revenue and deficit limits by specific amounts. The committees will have until Sept. 15 to draft amendments, which will then be combined by the Budget Committee into one large bill for consideration by the House and Senate.

A closer look at spending items in the $3.5 trillion budget plan, from the Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee, Commerce, Science and Technology Committee, Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Environment and Public Works Committee, Finance Committee, Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, and The Biden administration’s efforts to address climate change can be seen in reconciliation instructions received by Senate standing committees such as the Indian Affairs Committee. (as in Table 2)

Table 2 List of expenditure items related to climate change in the US$3.5 trillion budget plan

However, opposition to the $3.5 trillion budget plan has emerged from both Republicans and Democrats. Republican senators questioned the need for spending on the $3.5 trillion budget plan and the possibility that Democrats could raise taxes or other revenue sources to pay for it. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said such reckless taxation and frenzied spending is something we've never seen before, and it's a bill that will completely destroy the American economy. McConnell, along with 46 Republican senators, including Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson, issued an open letter expressing their position, estimating the $3.5 trillion budget plan by 2031 2019 will incur $45 trillion in debt, and they refuse to vote for the Democrats' irresponsible budget, nor will they agree to raise the debt ceiling. In fact, there are different opinions within the Democratic Party. For example, Arizona Democratic centrist Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, who has coordinated the preparation of the bipartisan infrastructure budget, also said that he refused to support the $3.5 trillion project. bill.

Finally, under the pressure of the White House and the strong coordination and promotion of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the U.S. House of Representatives passed 3.5 trillion votes on August 24, 2021 with 220 votes in favor and 212 votes against The dollar's budget resolution moves President Biden's core economic agenda forward. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi also promised that the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill would be voted on by Sept. 27, reassuring Republicans that the bill would not be shelved.

Whether it is the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill or the $3.5 trillion budget plan, the proportion of climate change-related expenditures in the budgets of the two bills reflects the Biden administration's priority to "tackling climate change" Important and prioritized governance projects, the former accounts for about 31% of the total budget and focuses on making U.S. infrastructure more resilient to the impacts of climate change, while the latter accounts for about 67% of the total budget and focuses on strengthening the interior of U.S. society climate resilience adaptation.

In contrast to Taiwan's existing forward-looking plans, the Earth Citizens Foundation has reviewed the government's performance in the past three years and compiled budgets, and found that too many plans are just scripted, which not only fails to reduce carbon emissions, but also contributes to carbon emissions. . For example, in the past, "rail" construction, "green energy" construction, and "urban and rural" projects that accounted for a large proportion of normal construction in the past spent a lot of resources on underground and elevated railways, instead of taking into account climate adjustment. Think about how to improve the quality of green transportation, and then achieve the function of replacing private transportation.

Today, governments around the world are actively proposing their net-zero carbon emissions goals and policies, and neighboring countries Japan and South Korea have also announced that they will achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. It is foreseeable that the next ten years will also be a critical decade. If Taiwan is unable to achieve the phased goal of net zero carbon emissions by 2030, then by 2050, Taiwan will only be far behind its Asian neighbors. Instead of worrying about what to lose in terms of economic development and environmental sustainability, the Chinese government should change its thinking and think about what practical benefits Taiwan can gain from it.

※This article is the original text of the submission. The article was published on the National Taiwan University Risk Center Medium on August 23, 2021, and reprinted on the National Taiwan University Risk Center Facebook Fan .

※This article was updated on August 28, 2020 with the latest information on the bill passed by the House of Representatives.

[1] Reconciliation is part of the 1974 US Congressional Rehearsal Act, designed to pass bills related to spending, taxes, and debt more quickly and without hassle. Since the debate time of the mediation bill is limited to 20 hours, it cannot be blocked in the Senate, so it is different from the general bill in that the mediation bill can bypass the 60-vote supermajority threshold, and only requires a simple majority (51 votes) of the Senate. Passable, this mechanism effectively breaks the deadlock and pushes the bill to pass. House Committee on the Budget (2021). “ Budget Reconciliation: The Basics .” Retrieval Date: 2021/08/23.

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