As the loss of their proposed prescription drug price benefits for the millions of Americans who receive health insurance through private sector employers stings hard, Democrats also received some good news of the day. overnight on their climate change plan – the Senate rules arbiter approved that the bill will include energy provisions, including electric vehicle tax credits and a bonus tax credit to encourage clean energy developers to pay the going wage.
“I am particularly pleased that our current salary provisions have been approved. These provisions guarantee wage rates for clean energy projects. Clean energy jobs will be good-paying jobs,” Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), whose panel is leading much of the effort, said in a statement.
The chamber is set to vote to move the bill forward later Saturday afternoon.
Aides on both sides of the aisle had argued over Democrats’ drug pricing plans for weeks. Republicans argued that the savings from the mandate involving the private insurance market, in particular, could be seen as a fiscal side effect of the policy rather than its primary purpose, which would violate Senate budgeting rules.
Some budget experts had speculated that certain conditions placed on electric vehicle tax credits, including restrictions on the origin of car battery materials, ran counter to budget rules guiding the process Democrats use to enact their bill by simple majority and elude a buccaneer.
Under the current proposal, a car is only eligible for full credit if the batteries were made with materials from the United States or from countries that have trade agreements with the United States. This is a requirement that some experts say will make it very difficult to get the tax credit.
But those provisions may apparently stay in the package — a move likely to please Sen. Joe Manchin (DW.Va.), who wanted the restrictions to reduce the electric vehicle industry’s reliance on China.
In addition to the electric vehicle provisions, Democrats also retained another element of the bill’s climate section: a proposed fee on oil and gas companies that exceed a certain level of methane emissions.
Importantly, the fate of a major health care provision Democrats want in the bill remains uncertain: lowering the price of insulin, a top priority for incumbent Senator Raphael Warnock ( D-Ga.). Republicans are trying to block the insulin proposal, arguing that its policy implications for the private market outweigh its fiscal impact.
Saturday’s procedural hurdle, once cleared by Democrats, will trigger up to 20 hours of debate evenly split between Democrats and Republicans. But both sides of the aisle shouldn’t be using their full time.
Instead, senators are likely eager to get started with a marathon amendment process known as “vote-a-rama,” in which the GOP will stage a series of politically sensitive votes for Democrats in hopes of to amend the party line package which has been more than a year in the making. The Senate must endure the marathon of amendments before Democrats can finally approve the entire bill.
