Sign-on Letter: Reject Joe Manchin’s Dirty Fossil Fuel ‘Side Deal’
Oil Change International and partners
August 2022
More than 650 climate, environmental justice, public health, youth, and progressive organizations sent a letter to Congressional leaders Sen. Chuck Schumer and Speaker Nancy Pelosi in opposition to the fossil fuel expansion ‘side deal’ proposed by West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin to Democratic leadership in exchange for his support of the Inflation Reduction Act.
According to a leaked draft that appears to be drafted by the American Petroleum Institute, the proposed dirty infrastructure bill would fast-track fossil fuel projects like the Mountain Valley Pipeline and undercut basic environmental protections used for decades by environmental justice communities as a line of last defense against dirty infrastructure attempting to enter their communities without consent.
The proposal also requires the president to create a list of at least 25 projects deemed to be of “strategic national importance”; at least five of the priority items “shall be projects to produce, process, transport, or store fossil fuel products, or biofuels, including projects to export or import those products.” The United States must reject new fossil fuel projects to meet President Biden’s emissions reduction goals and comply with what science says is necessary to keep warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius.
Click here to download the full letter: https://priceofoil.org/dirty-side-deal-letter
It’s way past time to start putting the earth, our only home, ah ad of politics and to do what it takes to reverse the damage we humans have done.