Senate votes to open debate on Democrats’ tax, energy and drug bill

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(Bloomberg) — The Senate voted to open debate on a landmark bill on taxes, climate change and drug prices in a rare Saturday session that is expected to continue late into the night.

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The $437 billion, 755-page bill, a slimmed down version of President Joe Biden’s multi-trillion-dollar national agenda, is on track to pass after a year of wrangling with two holdout Democrats, Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, on package content.

“This is one of the most important and impactful bills Congress has seen in decades,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said as the debate and a marathon through dozens of proposed amendments were beginning.

The vote was 51-50 with Vice President Kamala Harris breaking the tie. Vermont Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy arrived in a wheelchair to vote, after being away for weeks due to hip surgery.

Senate Democrats release final text of fiscal climate bill: document

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The legislation would allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices for the first time, starting with 10 high-priced drugs by the middle of this decade and expanding from there. It would cap out-of-pocket drug costs for Part D seniors at $2,000 a year and cap their insulin expenses at $35 a month. The savings from these lower drug prices are used to pay subsidized Obamacare premiums for three years. Without an extension, the reduced premiums made available during the Covid-19 pandemic are expected to expire in January.

The bill would also provide about $374 billion in climate and energy spending, including expanded tax credits for the purchase of electric vehicles and to fund renewable energy projects. Funding for this comes from the introduction of a minimum corporate tax of 15% on large corporations, an excise tax of 1% on the value of share buybacks and income from an $80 billion increase in the Internal Revenue Service budget for tax enforcement.

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Manchin, of West Virginia, agreed to the outline of the deal last month in a surprise deal he brokered in secret with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and after securing funding for related projects coal, requirements that public lands be opened to fossil fuel projects when it opens up to renewable energy projects, and a promise to pass a separate bill facilitating environmental reviews of energy projects.

Arizona Senator Sinema endorsed it this week after a proposal to narrow a carried interest loophole was dropped and a corporate minimum tax exception was made for deductions accelerated depreciation taxes used by many manufacturers. She also helped win a $4 billion boost to the Bureau of Reclamation to deal with a severe drought in the Colorado River Basin.

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Democrats are using a fast-track budget process to sidestep Republicans, who are united against the bill and say its tax increases and spending could worsen inflation and a looming recession.

“Hundreds of billions of dollars in tax hikes during a recession will kill jobs,” Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell said in the Senate on Saturday. “The American people don’t want hundreds of billions of dollars of Green New Deal waste.”

Democrats responded with their own studies that show small drops in inflation over time due to the bill.

The fast-track process was activated when Democrats passed a fiscal year 2022 budget resolution last August to quickly enact a $3.5 trillion measure with major changes to the social safety net and increased taxes on corporations and the wealthy.

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Months of negotiations with Manchin came crashing down in December when he scrapped a $2 trillion version of Biden’s program that would have provided paid family leave, expanded child tax credits, expanded Medicaid coverage, child care subsidies and Medicare hearing coverage.

The budget process comes with some procedural quirks, including giving Republicans the ability to propose unlimited amendments in what’s called a vote-a-rama. The GOP has promised to make the bill’s passage process this weekend “hell,” and Democrats expect to stay in session overnight to wear down the opposition and discourage further votes from amendment.

Democrats said they hoped Republicans wouldn’t use the 10 hours of debate they were entitled to on Saturday and refrain from further procedural delays. GOP tactics will determine whether the final vote takes place late Saturday, Sunday or later. Sunday is considered the most likely.

Passing the bill would be a major victory for Biden, although he played a more limited role in the final talks than last year trying to get a much larger version of the bill passed. of law.

It would also be a coup for Schumer after Biden’s agenda seemed completely stymied by party infighting this spring. Schumer cited a series of recent legislative victories, including the passage of a new gun law, veterans’ health benefits and a bill boosting semiconductor manufacturing in the United States.