Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) speaks to reporters before a hearing at the Dirksen Senate Office Building on July 19, 2022 in Washington, DC. Credit: Anna Moneymaker/Getty 

To seal their surprise climate deal with Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Senate Democrats conceded that their only hope for advancing a plan for a clean energy future in Congress was to bind it up in a lifeline for fossil fuels.

The legislation they propose to bring to the Senate next week still contains the heart of President Joe Biden’s climate plan—an historic $370 billion investment in transforming the U.S. power and transportation sectors and more than $60 billion in grants to help pollution-burdened disadvantaged communities achieve environmental justice. 

But the package—now called the “Inflation Reduction Act of 2022″—also would invest in ensuring a future for U.S. fossil energy in a carbon-constrained world. The legislation hikes tax incentives for expensive carbon capture technology 70 percent. It also requires that, for the next decade, the federal government offer tens of millions of acres offshore for oil and […]

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