A year and a half after taking office, US President Joe Biden has reached an important milestone. On Sunday, the US Senate passed the major climate and social package it was pushing.
US President Biden’s big climate and security package was passed by the US Senate on Sunday. The Senate has been deliberating since Saturday on the hundreds of billions of dollars package, which Biden says will bring “groundbreaking changes for working families”. The Democrat took office promising major reforms, but so far these have not materialized.
The deliberations were made possible because the Democrats surprisingly reached an internal party agreement at the end of July. Sen. Joe Manchin, a member of the conservative wing of the party, has given up his opposition to a significantly slimmed down version of last year’s Biden’s ambitious climate and social welfare package.
The package now available provides around 370 billion dollars (around 363 billion euros) for energy security and climate protection and 64 billion dollars for health care.
Democratic Senator Kyrsten Sinema, who blocked the package with Manchin last year, also announced her support for the new law a few days ago. This is extremely important, since the Democrats cannot afford a single dissenter given the razor-thin majority in the Senate.
Now the legislative package goes to the House of Representatives, where the Democrats have a narrow majority. A few months before the congressional midterm elections in November, passing the law, even in its slimmed down version, would be a great success for the president and his party.
Republicans also heavily criticize the new package. “We will do what we can to prevent this legislation from happening,” Republican Senator John Thune said Friday. But Republicans’ options are limited as long as there are no dissenters within the Democrats. However, Republicans could try to prolong the process with amendments.
