One Step Forward As Reconciliation Passes the House
Votes
Tony Sirna
Tony Sirna
Group Leader 50th Congressional Contact 20th Lobby Meeting with Congress
784 Posts
Needs Review

After months of wrangling, today  the House passed their version of the budget reconciliation bill (aka Build Back Better). So what does this mean for the budget reconciliation process and for carbon pricing?

This is definitely a step forward, but there is still much more work ahead. Everyone expects that the Senate will make significant changes to the bill, but exactly what is not yet clear. Negotiations continue between Senate leadership (eg Sens. Schumer) and Senate moderates (eg Sens. Manchin and Sinema). There are provisions in the House bill where there are known concerns from the moderates but I’m sure there are other changes still being debated behind closed doors. This includes carbon pricing (more on that below).

Now that the Senate has official bill text to work from, that will allow the Parliamentarian to officially review the bill for any Byrd Rule issues. This could mean that some provisions in the bill might need to be removed or modified to be allowable through the budget reconciliation process which allows a bill to pass with just 51 votes in the Senate.  Rumors are that this could be completed by Dec 3rd, and while we hope most Byrd Rule issues will be raised now, they could be raised up until the final vote, so it is probably not the last we will hear from the Parliamentarian. 

It’s also very helpful that we now have a score from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) which gives an estimate of the overall price tag for the bill. The score came out mostly as people expected in terms of costs and revenue, except that the CBO had a lower estimate for how much net revenue the IRS might bring in through greater enforcement of existing tax laws. Having a CBO score is necessary for a Senate vote on the bill, so as they make changes the CBO will have to re-score the bill, but that should be easier now that they have a baseline to work from.

The last we’ve heard from the Senate on timeline is that they hope to wrap up negotiations by Christmas. Of course, they’ve set target dates in the past and failed to meet those targets, so we should not place too much on that prediction. Once they have agreed on the framework for what’s in and out of the bill there will still be some time to craft final bill text and then there’s at least a couple weeks required procedurally for final passage in the Senate. Once the Senate has passed their version the House will then have to approve it as well -- they are unlikely to do a conference committee and instead the House will likely just vote on the Senate version. Many are predicting a January completion date. 

As for a carbon fee and dividend, the door is definitely still open and it is still on the table to be negotiated. Don’t be surprised if it is not being talked about in the press, given that Senators are trying to negotiate directly rather than through the press. 

This is still a great time for calls to Democrats the Senate to make sure they know there is support from the grassroots for a price, and that we want them to hold strong on climate in the negotiations on the bill. If you haven’t called within the last month, please call again.

If you have called, House passage is a great excuse to ask your friends and family to reach out to the Senate with a call (send them to cclusa.org/senate-call). 

Nov '21
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