Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) told reporters Tuesday that he isn’t involved in any serious talks at this time about reviving President Biden’s sweeping climate and social spending bill, underscoring the lack of progress on the president’s signature domestic policy plan.
“I’m really not going to talk about Build Back Better anymore because I think I’ve been very clear on that. There is no negotiations going on at this time,” Manchin said, doubling down on comments he made to “Fox News Sunday” last month announcing that he would not vote to proceed to the legislation.
Manchin said he’s more interested in working on legislation that has bipartisan support and again expressed concern about pushing legislation that further divides Democrats and Republicans.
“There’s an awful lot of things, a lot of things that were very, I think, well intended. And there was a lot of things that was a pretty far reach,” he explained. “Our country is divided and I don’t intend to do anything that divides our country anymore.”
Instead, Manchin said he wants “whatever I can do to unite and bring people together.”
The West Virginia Democrat, however, expressed interest in backing more federal support for renewable energy sources and technologies, raising the possibility that he might be able to vote for a smaller climate-focused package.
But the parameters of such a bill still need to be sketched, out and Manchin didn’t clarify whether he would support moving such a bill with simple-majority votes under the special budget reconciliation process or under regular order with 60-plus-vote majorities.
“There’s a lot of good things in there,” he said when asked about the climate-related provisions in the Build Back Better bill. “We got a lot of money in there for innovation, technology, tax credits for basically clean technolo… (Read more)
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