By Glynn Wilson –

If you care about democracy and the planet, you should be singing “Hallelujah” on Sunday night as a historic package of bills addressing the climate and energy emergency passed in the United States Senate on Sunday by a vote of 51-50, legislation that will also reduce the price of prescription drugs and tax corporations to pay for it all in a way designed to combat inflation and reduce the deficit.

The House is expected to interrupt its August break to reconvene on Friday to approve the significant legislation, sending it to President Joe Biden for his signature by next weekend.

The Inflation Reduction Act replaces the larger Build Back Better bill that had been stalled for months in negotiations with a couple of moderate Democrats, Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona.

The measure, which of course was opposed by all 50 Republicans, includes major pieces of President Biden’s domestic agenda, handing him and the Democrats a significant win with only three months to go before the November 8 midterm elections.

It will inject more than $370 billion into climate and energy programs, theoretically allowing the U.S. to meet a goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions about 40 percent below 2005 levels by the end of this decade.

It also achieves the longstanding goal of Democrats to reduce prescription drug costs to consumers by allowing Medicare for the first time to negotiate the prices of medicines directly. It also caps the amount recipients pay out of pocket for drugs each year at $2,000, and extends larger premium subsidies for health coverage for low- and middle-income people for three years under the Affordable Care Act.

The legislation will be paid for with substantial tax increases on large corporations by establishing a 15 percent corporate minimum tax, and imposing a new tax on company stock buybacks.

“Today, Senate Democrats sided with American families over special interests, voting to lower the cost of prescription drugs, health insurance, and everyday energy costs and reduce the deficit, while making the wealthiest corporations finally pay their fair share,” Biden said in a statement after being approved to leave the White House for the first time in days since he’s been diagnosed with Covid.

Initially pitched by President Biden as “Build Back Better,” a multi-trillion-dollar, cradle-to-grave social safety net on the order of the Great Society, some of the more ambitious spending and taxes would not fly with all 50 Democrats.

Facing unanimous opposition from Republicans, who tried to use the filibuster and add on amendments to block elements of their domestic agenda, Democrats took full advantage of the Senate’s special budget rules to force through as much of it as they could with the support of all 50 members of their caucus, with Vice President Kamala Harris casting the tiebreaking vote.

“The Senate vote was the culmination of more than a year of hard-fought negotiations between the party’s progressive core, which demanded a transformational plan that would touch every aspect of American life, and a conservative-leaning flank that sought a much narrower package. Those talks played out against the backdrop of a 50-50 Senate in which any single defection could have killed the effort — and nearly did, several times,” the The New York Times reported.

“The caucus overwhelmingly is focused on what’s in this bill — not what’s not in the bill, even though every one of us would want more — because what’s in the bill is so incredible,” Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader, said in an interview. “You had to thread the needle.”

Success came after a weekend-long session featuring an all-night, 16 hour voting marathon, with Republicans trying and failing to derail the process.

“It took all night and much of today (Sunday) to break through Republican obstruction, disruption, and distraction, but my colleagues and I in the Democratic Senate majority stayed united and got this bold, transformative legislation done for the American people,” Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland said in a statement. “Our bill is now off to the House of Representatives for a final vote – and I am confident that we will soon get it to the President’s desk for signature.”

He called it “a historic win for the American people.”

“… we’re taking action to address some of the biggest challenges our nation faces: the worsening climate crisis, sky-high prescription drug costs, a tax code that unfairly puts corporations and the wealthy before working Americans, and inflation. This bill will address each of these challenges head-on, while reducing our national debt and creating thousands of good-paying jobs,” Van Hollen said.

He authored two key provisions that are included in the proposal: one will provide rebates to help Americans make their homes more energy efficient so they can reduce their heating and cooling bills. The other provision creates a Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, which will provide resources that can be used to launch a National Climate Bank to partner with the private sector and community-based lenders to make an array of investments in clean energy technologies and energy efficiency improvements.

“This will serve as a force multiplier for the development and deployment of clean energy, with a large focus on underserved communities,” he said.

In addition, the centerpiece of the health care provisions in this bill marks the culmination of a years-long battle he’s been leading with colleagues to give Medicare the power to negotiate lower drug prices.

“I’ve cosponsored legislation to do just that throughout my time in Congress, and I’m very proud to see such a provision included in the Inflation Reduction Act,” he said. “America’s seniors shouldn’t have to worry about being able to afford the prescriptions they need – and this provision in our bill will ensure that older Americans are no longer forced into financial ruin because of prescription drug costs.”

“We face a pivotal moment in our nation,” he said, “from our fight against the climate emergency, to our battle to lower the costs of prescription drugs … to our efforts to build an economy that invests in more prosperity and opportunity for all Americans. This transformative measure will help build a better future for our nation and our world.”

Republicans did succeed in forcing the removal of a $35 cap on insulin prices for patients on private insurance. The insulin price cap for Medicare patients remained untouched in the bill, with the potential to help millions of seniors.

“As part of its landmark climate and energy initiative, which would put the Biden administration within reach of its aim to cut emissions roughly in half by 2030, the bill would offer tax incentives to steer consumers to electric vehicles and lure electric utilities toward renewable energy sources like wind or solar power. It also includes millions of dollars in climate resiliency funding for tribal governments and Native Hawaiians, as well as $60 billion to help disadvantaged areas that are disproportionately affected by climate change,” the Times reports. “For Democrats, passage of the measure capped a remarkably successful six-week stretch that included final approval of a $280 billion industrial policy bill to bolster American competitiveness with China and the largest expansion of veterans’ benefits in more than two decades.”

But unlike those bills, the tax and climate legislation passed the evenly divided Senate along party lines, condemned by Republicans as federal overreach and reckless spending at a time when prices remain high across the country.

Biden’s original vision for the plan called for $2.2 trillion, a measure that passed in the House in November. To accommodate Manchin and Sinema, billions of dollars for child care was cut from the bills, along with money for paid leave, public education and set aside plans to roll back key elements of the 2017 Trump tax cuts.

“If enacted, it would be the most significant climate law ever put in place in the United States, investing hundreds of billions of dollars over 10 years in tax credits for manufacturing facilities for things like electric vehicles, wind turbines and solar panels, and $30 billion for additional production tax credits to accelerate domestic manufacturing of solar panels, wind turbines, batteries and critical minerals processing. It would also impose a fee to penalize excessive emissions of methane, a greenhouse gas,” the Times reported.

The legislation would allow Medicare to negotiate the cost of up to 10 prescription drugs initially, beginning in 2026, and give seniors access to free vaccines.

“Coupled with a three-year extension of expanded health care subsidies first approved last year as part of the $1.9 trillion pandemic aid law, the package amounts to the largest change to national health policy since the passage of the Affordable Care Act,” the Times reports.

To finance much of the plan, the measure would institute a new 15 percent corporate minimum tax that would apply to the profits that companies report on their financial statements to shareholders, known as book income. It would impose a new 1 percent tax on corporate stock buybacks beginning in 2023. It would also pour $80 billion into the IRS to bulk up the agency’s enforcement arm and crack down on wealthy corporations and tax evaders, a provision estimated to raise $124 billion over a decade.

It was the second time in less than two years that Democrats muscled through a sprawling spending package without any Republican support, following passage of the $1.9 trillion pandemic aid package last year. Since inflation skyrocketed in the months after that measure became law, Republicans warned that Democrats were exacerbating the economic stress facing American families by passing the legislation.

The price for the support of Manchin and Sinema:

Manchin demanded that the interests of his coal-producing state were reflected in the final bill. In addition to securing separate commitments to complete construction of a natural gas pipeline in West Virginia and votes on a measure to help fast-track permits for energy infrastructure, he fought to include tax credits for carbon capture technology and requirements for new oil drilling leases in Alaska’s Cook Inlet and the Gulf of Mexico.

Sinema extracted her own concessions, including $4 billion to help Western states combat historic drought levels and the preservation of a tax break that allows venture capitalists and hedge fund managers to pay substantially lower taxes on some of their income than other taxpayers.

She also preserved a valuable deduction known as bonus depreciation, used by manufacturers when they purchase equipment, that they could have lost or seen diluted under the new corporate minimum tax rules. And on Sunday afternoon, just as the measure appeared on a glide path to approval, she insisted on yet another change, backing a Republican proposal to shield hedge fund and portfolio companies from being hit by the minimum tax.

The concessions frustrated liberals, particularly Senator Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent and Budget Committee chairman who had pushed for spending as much as $6 trillion on the domestic policy package. He proposed changes to the measure during the all-night voting session, though most Democratic senators opposed them in order to protect the final product.

By Sunday afternoon around 3:30, staff aides wiped away tears as they watched the final vote on the floor. Democratic senators whooped with joy and hugged one another after the gavel fell, making a point of thanking and acknowledging Manchin and Sinema.

“This is pretty nearly a political miracle to negotiate with a caucus that is as diverse as we have, from Bernie to Manchin,” said Senator Brian Schatz, Democrat of Hawaii, who openly wept on the Senate floor during the final vote. “This thing got killed and got revived and got killed and got revived — all the way to the end.”

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