The Biden “Bipartisan” Infrastructure Bill Is A Climate Disaster
Promotion Of Logging And Other Major Flaws Would Massively Increase GHG Emissions
I just read an important Report from the John Muir Project (h/t CP) that exposes and documents the impacts of massive flaws in the Biden “bipartisan” infrastructure bill and the so called “progressive” budget reconciliation bill that I need to summarize here, see:
My initial rapid read of the Senate infrastructure bill flagged the logging and climate flaws documented in this Report. While I focused on carbon capture and other fossil subsidies, I briefly mentioned the logging and others flaws in this August 19, 2021 post:
But just reading the table of contents of the bi-partisan infrastructure bill reveals lots of bad stuff.There are NEPA categorical exclusions to “streamline” regulatory review (and something called “one federal approval”), several exemptions & loopholes for logging, and privatization and deregulation.
The tradition highway construction funding will result in huge new greenhouse gas emissions. Perhaps the Congressional Budget Office might produce a “score” on this bill, not in terms of spending and effects on the deficit, but on quantifying the new carbon emissions the bill would create.
The Biden Neoliberal approach amounts to all carrots and no sticks (the bill has been dubbed “false solutions” – and “apocalypse soon”)
I have not read the current version of the budget reconciliation bill under negotiation.
For years, I’ve been trying to make the link between logging and climate and DEP failures in opposing what are relatively small logging projects here in NJ, e.g. see:
So I’m glad John Muir made the effort to document them in the pending bills.
Here are the John Muir Report’s mind blowing Key Findings:
As Jeffrey St. Clair ironically wrote:
+ A new report from the John Muir Project and the Center for a Sustainable Economy details how provisions in Infrastructure & Reconciliation bills would increase annual CO2 emissions from logging by 48%, pushing these annual emissions well over 1 gigaton per year. So perhaps Manchin and Sinema are unwittingly doing the planet a favor by blocking this bill…