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Bernie Sanders rejects debt ceiling deal, says Manchin’s pipeline 'disastrous' for planet

"Climate change is, by far, the most existential threat facing our country..." said Sanders.

Published: May 31, 2023 6:16pm

Updated: August 2, 2023 2:19pm

Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders said he will vote "no" on the Biden-McCarthy compromise debt limit deal, citing fossil fuels as one of his many objections. 

Announcing his decision on Twitter Wednesday, Sen. Sanders slammed the Republican-backed Limit, Save, Grow Act that he claimed would make "savage cuts to programs" that Americans "desperately need."

However, the compromise bill includes other projects that Sen. Sanders said he couldn't sign off on like approving his fellow Senator, Democrat Joe Manchin's, Mountain Valley Pipeline.

The bill, Sanders alleged, "makes it easier for fossil fuel companies to pollute and destroy the planet by fast tracking the disastrous Mountain Valley Pipeline," he said in the Wednesday press release.

"At a time when climate change is, by far, the most existential threat facing our country and the entire world," he continued, "I cannot, in good conscience, vote" for the bill.

Sanders isn't the only Dem to oppose the debt deal. Earlier this week, New York Rep. Jamaal Bowman objected to it also over the pipeline in part, demanding a complete end to fossil fuel drilling. Some Democrats like Senator Sherrod Brown (Ohio) however, plan to vote "yes" on the bill due to what he viewed as Medicare and Medicaid wins.

Republicans appear just as split on the deal as Democrats. South Carolina Rep. Nancy Mace said Americans have been "spoon-fed a bed of lies" surrounding the deal, while Arizona Rep. Eli Crane said he's determined to "stop" the bill dead in its tracks.

The House is set to vote on the bill this evening. If passed, it will head to the Senate.

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