Manchin pulls back permitting bill amid opposition

Sen. Joe Manchin backed off his plan to include legislation speeding up federal environmental reviews of pipelines, transmission lines and other large energy projects in a must-pass spending bill amid increasingly entrenched opposition on both sides of the aisle. The Senate is voting this week on a spending bill to keep government funding flowing when the fiscal year expires Friday at midnight. Manchin's permitting bill was supposed to be included in that legislation under a deal he cut this summer with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D- N.Y., in exchange for his vote on the Democrats' Inflation Reduction Act. But Republicans and some Democrats said they would not vote for the spending legislation with Manchin's permitting bill included, potentially depriving Schumer of the 60 votes he needed to avoid a government shutdown.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said on the Senate floor Tuesday that he would not vote for Manchin's bill, calling it a "partisan poison pill." "The bill doesn't come close to delivering the real common sense changes that are needed," said Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas. The spending bill easily cleared a procedural vote Tuesday, 72-23, after Manchin's bill was pulled from the funding legislation. Manchin, a West Virginia Democrat, is trying to bridge the Democrat-Republican divide on energy and climate change, championing his bill as a means to speed renewable energy development while also increasing the production of fossil fuels on which the country still relies. In an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal Sunday, Manchin said the country was "in the midst of a global energy war, and the American people—Republican, Democrat and independent—are paying the price." He had hoped to attract Republicans who have long called for permitting reform. But a memo circulated by Republican leaders Monday warned the legislation introduced by Manchin last week would not change any environmental laws but rather create "unenforceable deadlines" for federal agencies that are unlikely to speed permitting.