Dem Rep. Bowman unsatisfied with green provisions in debt limit bill despite Republican concessions

Progressive New York Democrat Representative Jamaal Bowman spoke out against the tentative debt ceiling deal struck between Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy and President Biden despite it containing multiple green energy provisions. 

Over the weekend, McCarthy and Biden reached an agreement on raising the debt ceiling just days before the U.S. was set to run out of money and be unable to pay its obligations, according to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. The deal reportedly keeps in place hundreds of billions of dollars in clean energy investments from the “Inflation Reduction Act,” which the Biden administration has dubbed the “most significant action” for “clean energy and climate change” ever passed by Congress.

However, Bowman – who endorses Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal (GND) – told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer that the debt limit agreement doesn’t go far enough because it includes funding for a West Virginia gas pipeline, and he believes we should end fossil fuel drilling “completely.”

“Another major problem [with the deal] is the Joe Manchin pipeline that we fought so hard to stop from being built; that is still a part of this bill,” Bowman said. “We need to stop drilling for fossil fuels completely.”

Bowman went on to demand “an expedited way to get us to clean, renewable energy” or else the world “will continue to have these severe weather events.” 

The pipeline that Bowman took issue with is the Mountain Valley Pipeline, which his Democrat colleague, West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin, has been pushing for over a year. Under the tentative agreement, all outstanding permits for the pipeline would reportedly be approved. Once built, it would export gas from West Virginia throughout the Southeast.

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