Americans Want The Government To Act On Climate Change. What's The Hold-Up? [View all]

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

As President Biden and other Democrats work to pass an omnibus budget bill, members of the party are at odds over the topline spending number, with figures ranging between $1.5 trillion to $3.5 trillion. Biden has said it’s likely the bill will end up in the $2 trillion range, which means progressives’ priorities will surely be shrunk, cut or reworked. Progressive lawmakers have signaled that they’re open to compromise, but some are warning that there’s at least one area they’ll refuse to give ground on: climate-related provisions.

Climate change could thus prove to be one of the main sticking points between progressives and centrists in the party. From the progressives’ point of view, the reconciliation bill appears to be the federal government’s best shot at tackling the rapidly escalating climate crisis in the near future. And New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said that climate provisions are not something Congress can “kick down the line.” Meanwhile, West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, one of the key centrists needed to pass the bill who has already successfully blocked some of Biden’s priority items, has said that he opposes the current bill’s primary climate provision: paying utilities to switch to clean energy.

So where does the public stand on combating climate change? Even before recent devastating weather events, Americans have long said that the federal government wasn’t doing enough. And polls now suggest that public opinion is more on the side of progressives. But the big caveat here is how Americans prioritize action on climate change versus other issues.

Overall, a majority of Americans want action on climate. According to a newly released survey from Monmouth University, 60 percent of U.S. adults said that climate change was “very” or “extremely” important for the federal government to address. Furthermore, 56 percent of U.S. adults said climate change was a “very serious” problem — up from 41 percent in the same poll in December 2015. A recent study from Pew Research Center found that 60 percent of U.S. adults said they were worried about the personal impacts of climate change.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/americans-want-the-government-to-act-on-climate-change-whats-the-hold-up/