After 18 months of negotiations and a marathon night of debates, the US Senate passed Joe Biden’s grand plan on climate and health on Sunday, delivering a significant milestone victory for the president, less than 100 days from crucial elections. .
By their votes alone, the Democrats have approved this plan of more than 430 billion dollars of investments, which takes the road to the House of Representatives for a final vote next week, before being signed into law by Joe Biden.
“This bill will change America for decades to come,” assured the leader of the Senate Democrats Chuck Schumer, his voice quavering just after the vote, greeted by thunderous applause in his camp.
All Republican senators voted against the text, dubbed the “Inflation Reduction Act”, which they accuse on the contrary of generating unnecessary public spending.
Electric cars
The result of difficult negotiations with the right wing of the Democratic Party, this envelope includes the largest investment ever committed in the United States for the climate – 370 billion dollars to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 40% by to 2030.
“A lot of compromises had to be made. Doing important things almost always requires it, ”said Joe Biden in a press release, welcoming the passage of the bill in the Senate and urging the House of Representatives to adopt the text without delay.
With this reform, an American will receive up to 7,500 dollars in tax credits for the purchase of an electric car. The installation of solar panels on its roof will be covered at 30%.
This reform must also make it possible to strengthen the resilience of the forests in the face of the monster fires which are ravaging the American West and whose multiplication has been directly attributed to global warming.
Several billion dollars in tax credits will also be offered to the most polluting industries in order to assist them in their energy transition, a measure strongly criticized by the left wing of the party, which had to line up behind this text, for lack of reaching a more ambitious agreement.
Coming to power with immense reform plans, Joe Biden saw them be buried, resurrected, then buried again by a very moderate senator from his camp, Joe Manchin. In view of the very thin Democratic majority in the Senate, the elected representative of West Virginia, a state known for its coal mines, has virtually a right of veto over his projects.
At the end of July, the leader of the Democrats in the Senate finally succeeded in wresting a compromise from Mr. Manchin.
“Vote-a-rama”
On Saturday, the senators finally began to debate the text in the hemicycle.
In the evening, they entered a marathon procedure called “vote-a-rama”, during which the elected officials, drawn features, for fifteen hours in a row proposed dozens of amendments and demanded a vote on each .
The opportunity for the Republican opposition, which considers the Biden plan too expensive and the Democratic left wing, which wanted it wider, to present their grievances.
Influential senator on the left, Bernie Sanders presented several amendments during the night supposed to strengthen the social aspect of the text, which in recent months has been considerably trimmed.
The text provides for 64 billion dollars of investment in health and the gradual reduction in the price of certain drugs, which can be up to ten times more expensive than in other rich countries.
But progressives had to abandon their ambitions of free public kindergartens and universities and better care for the elderly.
“Millions of retirees will continue to have rotten teeth and not to receive the dentures, hearing aids or glasses they deserve,” criticized Mr. Sanders from the hemicycle. “This bill does nothing to solve this problem,” assured the former presidential candidate.
But the Democratic camp, anxious to implement this plan before the perilous legislative elections in November and offer a victory to a president with an anemic popularity rating, united and rejected the vast majority of the amendments.
In parallel with these massive investments, the bill intends to reduce the public deficit with a new minimum tax of 15% for all companies whose profits exceed one billion dollars. It aims to prevent certain large companies from using the tax loopholes which have allowed them to pay far less than the theoretical rate.
It is estimated that this measure could generate more than $258 billion in US federal revenue over the next 10 years.