The Inflation Reduction Act: Who Won the War?
A surprising win raises questions about the keys to political success in American democracy.
The discussion of who deserves credit for passing the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) mirrors the philosophical clashes that made passage such a struggle. For much of the preceding year and a half, the course in Congress trended toward disunion and inaction. It was not just that climate activists were fighting against denialists; pro-climate advocates bickered with each other. Bill Gates wrote a book about climate, and Bill McKibben trashed it in the NY Times.
I, for one, believed the inability of Bill McKibben and Bill Gates to join forces showed we had lost the coalition-building culture needed to operate Madisonian democracy. But somehow, momentarily at least, the system worked. Both McKibben and Gates supported the legislation. McKibben expressed reservations in the New Yorker: “Taken as a whole, the bill is a triumph … the most ambitious climate package ever passed in the U.S., [allowing] the country to resume a credible role as an environmental leader. Yet it reflects not just the growing strength of the climate movement but also the lingering power of the fossil-fuel industry ….”
This makes sense. In the paradigm of Christopher C. Mann’s The Wizard and the Prophet, McKibben is a Prophet. He believes environmental challenges are moral in nature, and the correct response lies in restraining our appetites to fit the planet’s carrying capacity. This, in turn, requires activism to fight industry and its political influence. At heart, though, the IRA takes a Wizardly approach to the crisis, funding research and industrial expansion to meet the challenges with “clean” technology.
Gates, therefore, was more enthusiastic. Clearly a Wizard in Mann’s paradigm — he believes technology can solve environmental issues — he urged the Senate across the finish line with a full-throated editorial in the Times: “Through new and expanded tax credits and a long-term approach, this bill [will] ensure that critical climate solutions have sustained support to develop into new industries.”
A lively discussion has ensued regarding the causes of the victory, and to whom credit belongs. There were many twists to the process. Hopes had risen when Senators Schumer and Manchin revealed in early June that they were negotiating again. Then suddenly those hopes were dashed on July 14 when it seemed apparent that Manchin would not agree to the climate proposals. There followed widespread questioning of Manchin’s motives, and introduction of the coinage “rug pulling.” Just as suddenly, two weeks later, a “change of heart” and the announcement of a climate deal.
What happened?
Bill McKibben offers the simplest explanation. Writing to the subscribers of his “fighting newsletter” Crucial Years, McKibben subtitled his explication “If you want to know who changed Manchin’s mind — you did.” He and his fellow activists had put so much pressure on Manchin — heaped so much scorn — that the prospect of being remembered in history as the man who ruined the planet led him to collapse.
The pushback against his decision two weeks ago to blow up the deal was harsh — clearly harsher than Manchin expected. Within hours he was trying to make the case that he hadn’t actually walked away from negotiations. His fellow Senators stopped playing nice and made it clear they had no use for him. And the president seemed to understand he had to hit back: hence his increasingly clear talk of a climate emergency. But most of all it was, I think, the widespread public scorn. Somehow it began to break through to Manchin that the only thing history would ever remember about him is that he blocked action on the worst crisis humans have ever faced.
Like Senator Paine in the Frank Capra classic, Senator Manchin broke down, forced in the end to confront his own unworthiness. Activist passion, moral outrage, and the making-heard-of-voices were the keys to success.
A narrative from Andrew Marantz in the New Yorker likewise suggests activist triumph: some Congressional staffers staged a sit-in after Manchin and Schumer’s negotiations broke down. These seeming insiders felt stymied by the process. Interestingly, the venue they chose to express their frustration was not Senator Manchin’s office, but — Senator Schumer’s.
Saying “whipping votes is literally Chuck Schumer’s job” and suggesting what was needed was “a little creative hardball,” several staffers drafted a letter to President Biden and the Majority Leader.
They demanded that:
- The President declare a climate emergency
- The Majority Leader threaten Senator Manchin with loss of his committee chairmanship and cancellation of pet projects unless he immediately agreed to support a Senate bill incorporating climate justice provisions as approved by the House.
They accused the President and Majority Leader of accepting the Senator’s inflation worries “at face value, even though they represent delay tactics and misinformation funded and designed by the fossil fuel industry and Republican billionaires.” The authors of the letter further offered that their demands were backed by their credentials “as political strategists, policy writers and communications experts.” The letter was initialed by 168 staffers, a handful of whom barged into Schumer’s office carrying signs with slogans including “Keep negotiating, Chuck!” and “TRY.” When the police arrived, several refused to leave; after being arraigned, they repaired to a bar that wasn’t yet open for business. “O.K., kids, who wants to catch their second trespassing charge of the day?” one staffer asked defiantly, but the bar’s ownership let them stay, as long as they sat on the patio.
The timing of Manchin’s “final change of heart” raised a different prospect, more Machiavellian. The announcement came just hours after the Senate had passed a bipartisan bill to make America’s semiconductor industry more competitive (CHIPS). Mitch McConnell had made Republican support for CHIPS conditional, tweeting “there will be no bipartisan [CHIPS bill] as long as Democrats are pursuing a partisan reconciliation bill,” a threat that reportedly angered Manchin. When Manchin signaled on July 14 that he would not support the climate and energy provisions on the table, perhaps this was a ruse to attract bipartisan support for CHIPS (necessary since Bernie Sanders did not support the bill). Once that vote was over, Manchin and Schumer were free to announce their climate agreement, which they did almost immediately — Newsweek suggested perhaps they had “out-McConnelled” the Minority Leader.
In this scenario, rather than being exasperated with each other, Manchin and Schumer were in cahoots. Some of their negotiations apparently occurred in secluded basement meeting rooms. Senator Manchin serendipitously contracted Covid, leading to virtual talks and handshakes over Zoom, which allowed the pair to further elude the watchful eyes of reporters and staff. If true, this behind-the-scenes skullduggery is worthy of the Founders themselves, who suddenly presented the Continental Congress with a take-it-or-leave-it draft of a new central government after five months behind closed doors in Philadelphia.
More conventional deliberation may also have contributed. Some reports indicate the final deal resulted from two weeks of interpersonal dialog, honest research, and some old-fashioned log rolling. The Washington Post chronicled interactions with “a wide array of Democrats including Sens. Carper and Christopher A. Coons of Delaware, Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts, John Hickenlooper of Colorado, Tina Smith of Minnesota and Ron Wyden of Oregon.” Per the Times, Senator Hickenlooper was particularly engaged. Some highlights from their report:
Mr. Hickenlooper said the group worked closely with experts at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, and that Mr. Manchin put much stock in their data indicating that legislation could be designed that did not worsen inflation.
…He called Mr. Manchin “an honest broker” in the talks, one who wanted to find a way to address climate change without creating a burden for the fossil fuel workers in his state.
…“He never told me he was done, and I said as long as Joe Manchin is at the table, I’m at the table,” Mr. Hickenlooper said.
The discussion over inflation seems genuine enough. If Manchin’s inflation fears were just an excuse — “delaying tactics funded by the fossil fuel industry” — then bringing in Wharton experts (behind closed doors) would be difficult to explain. The deliberations also included last-minute deal-making, finally including drilling concessions and a pipeline through West Virginia in exchange for historic spending to support clean energy. Those few political theorists who believe such negotiating between elections is key to democratic success would approve. (Former Government majors at Georgetown University — and perhaps no one else — will recall “The ‘Intensity’ Problem and Democratic Theory” by Willmoore Kendall and George Carey.)
According to reports, Bill Gates also participated discreetly in these deliberations, along with a small cadre of environmental and business leaders. This is somewhat surprising. In his book, Gates claimed his expertise was engineering, not politics. Still, Gates had a pep talk for Schumer. When the Majority Leader complained he had shown “infinite patience,” Gates replied, “all you need to do is show infinite plus one patience,” echoing the Senate staffer whose placard read “TRY.”
When working with Manchin, Gates began with a trust in the Senator’s sincerity. Like Jason Walsh of the BlueGreen Alliance (“We came to a judgment that Manchin legitimately wanted to get something done, but he had serious concerns, and those concerns needed to be addressed”), Gates believed “Joe wanted a climate bill.” He also discussed concrete ways that former coal miners in West Virginia could productively work on small nuclear reactors through Gates-funded TerraPower. Representatives of another Gates venture, Form Energy, a battery startup planning a hub in West Virginia, walked Manchin staffers through comparative growth predictions with and without the proposed IRA incentives.
It is hard to evaluate the effect of Gates’ lobbying, but he was certainly trying. He also seems happy to let people know about it. The final IRA includes much of what he advocated in his book, and while he told Bloomberg Green “I don’t want to take credit for what went on,” he also conceded it was “one of the happier moments of my climate work.” In the Times review of How to Avoid a Climate Disaster, Bill McKibben lectured Bill Gates about his professed ignorance of politics:
Power comes in many forms, from geothermal and nuclear to congressional and economic; it’s wonderful that Gates has decided to work hard on climate questions, but to be truly helpful he needs to resolve to be a better geek — he needs to really get down on his hands and knees and examine how that power works in all its messiness. Politics very much included.
Maybe Bill Gates listened.
For a longer discussion, see my essay “Two Bills and ‘Reconciliation.’”
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