The Inflation Reduction Act. Bill Gates brokered the deal.
In the interest of transparency.
My artwork can be found on Instagram @klonskyart.
There’s some good stuff in the so-called Inflation Reduction Act that the Democrats passed and President Biden signed yesterday.
I’m with Senator Bernie Sanders who voted for it but described it as a “modest bill.”
In spite of the fact that it fell far short of the original Build Back Better legislation that Biden proposed 18 months ago, the Democrats in Congress and all 50 Democrats in the Senate voted for it, including the members of the progressive wing of the Party.
For months the big question seemed to be whether West Virginia’s Senator Joe Manchin would go along.
The IRA, if passed, seemed a win for green energy and a loss for fossil fuels. Manchin has often been seen as the Senator from the coal industry.
The Act needed all 50 Democratic senators and Manchin was resistant.
At the last minute, both he and Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema flipped an announced they would go along.
What the hell happened?
A recent article in Bloomberg might provide a clue as to how democracy works in America and the power of the billionaires.
Back in 2011, around the time of the nuclear reactor disaster at Fukushima, my brother Mike blogged about Bill Gates’ investment in nuclear energy and the negative results - negative to say the least.
The Bloomberg piece brings us up to date on Gates investment in nuclear power.
It also shows how Bill Gates was The Man from Oz (not to be confused with the Trumpian Republican senate candidate in Pennsylvania), the man behind the curtain in brokering the deal that brought Joe Manchin on board.
It was the middle of July — with temperatures surging through one of the hottest summers in US history, half of the country in drought — and the Senate’s all-important member, Joe Manchin of West Virginia, had slammed the brakes on legislation to combat global warming. Again.
That’s when billionaire philanthropist and clean-energy investor Bill Gates got on the phone with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, whose job it was to hold together the Democrats’ no-vote-to-spare majority.
Read between the lines of the Bloomberg story and you wouldn’t be blamed if you thought maybe Gates made Manchin an offer he couldn’t refuse.
The final law expands tax credits that Gates and others sought to support that reach beyond renewable power and batteries to also encompass nuclear plants, carbon capture technology, sustainable aviation fuels, hydrogen, and upgrading the grid. It includes a tax credit for advanced manufacturing pushed by renewable and auto interests as a way to nurture a domestic production of solar modules and electric vehicles.
“I don’t want to take credit for what went on,” Gates said.
He’s too modest.
