The West Virginia Democrat told the White House that he firmly opposes the clean power plan, which is the force behind the president's plan to tackle climate change.

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Washington — the most important part of President Biden’s climate agenda — a plan to rapidly replace U.S. coal and gas-fired power plants with wind, solar, and nuclear power — may be removed from Congress’s pending large-scale budget bill, according to Report. Congress staff and lobbyists familiar with the matter.

According to three of them, Democratic Senator Joe Manchin III from West Virginia, a coal-rich state, told the White House that he strongly opposed the clean power plan. As a result, White House staff are now rewriting legislation without climate clauses and trying to piece together other policies that can also reduce emissions.

White House spokesperson Vedant Patel declined to comment on the specific content of the bill. He said: “The White House is focusing on advancing the president’s climate goals and enabling the United States to achieve its emissions targets in a way that promotes domestic industrial development. Good work.”

Mr. Manchin’s spokesperson, Sam Runyon (Sam Runyon) wrote in an email: “Senator Manchin made it clear that he is concerned about using taxpayer money to pay private companies to do what they’re already doing. Worries. He continues to support efforts to combat climate change while protecting America’s energy independence and ensuring our energy reliability."

Another West Virginia senator and Republican Shelley Moore Capito (Shelley Moore Capito) said she “strongly opposes” the clean power plan because it “is designed to eventually eliminate coal from our power mix. And natural gas, which is absolutely devastating for my state."

The $150 billion clean power plan is the force behind Mr. Biden's ambitious climate agenda. It will reward utilities that switch from burning fossil fuels to renewable energy, and punish those that don't.

Experts say that the policy in the next ten years will drastically reduce the greenhouse gases that warm the earth, and this will be the strongest climate change policy ever formulated by the United States.

"This is definitely the most important climate policy in the package," said Leah Stokes, a climate policy expert who has been advising Senate Democrats on how to develop the plan. "We fundamentally need it to achieve our climate goals. This is reality. And now we can't. So it's sad."

This setback also means that when President Biden travels to Glasgow two weeks later to attend the important UN climate change summit, his hands will be weakened. He had hoped to use the Clean Power Plan as evidence of the largest emitter of global warming pollution in history, and the United States seriously changed its course and led the global effort to combat climate change. Mr. Biden vowed that by 2030, US emissions will be reduced by 50% from 2005 levels.

Four years after former President Donald J. Trump publicly ridiculed the science of climate change and promulgated a policy that encourages more drilling and burning of fossil fuels, the rest of the world remains committed to the country’s response to global warming Be very vigilant.

"This will create a huge problem for the White House in Glasgow," said David G. Victor, co-director of the University of California, San Diego's Deep Decarbonization Program. "If you see the president come in and say all the right things with all the right wishes, then one of the earliest tests of whether he can deliver it falls apart, and this raises the question of whether you can trust him."

The Democrats had hoped to include the clean power plan in their comprehensive budget bill, which would also expand the social safety net, and they planned to strengthen the plan by using an expedited procedure called reconciliation, which would allow them to vote without any Republicans. Pass the plan under. The party is still trying to figure out how to pass the budget bill and a bipartisan infrastructure bill worth $1 trillion.

For weeks, Democratic leaders have vowed that the clean power plan is a non-negotiable part of the legislation. The Progressive Democratic Party held a rally and shouted "No climate, no deal!"

Mr. Biden had hoped that the enactment of legislation would clean up the power sector, which generates about a quarter of the country’s greenhouse gases. He wants a plan that will last a long time after he leaves office, no matter who occupies the White House.

Speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, said at an event in San Francisco on Friday morning that she is still pushing for the strongest climate change clause possible in the bill.

"What we are discussing here today is the climate issue," the California Democrat said. "This is our moment. We can't-we don't have more time to wait."

Since the Clinton administration, the Democratic president has tried to enact climate change legislation, but failed. In a year when scientists say climate change has exacerbated record-breaking droughts, wildfires, storms, and floods, the Democratic Party hopes to finally get enough political support to enact a strong climate law, despite scientific reports that the window is rapidly closing to avoid the planet The most devastating impact of warming.

An important scientific report released in August concluded that countries must immediately stop burning fossil fuels to avoid severe droughts, intense heat waves, water shortages, devastating storms, sea level rise and ecosystem collapse in the future. Scientists said that in order to avoid disasters, countries must maintain the global average temperature not higher than the pre-industrial level of 1.5 degrees Celsius. But as countries continue to emit carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, the global average temperature has risen by approximately 1.1 degrees Celsius.

The core of Biden's domestic agenda. The huge $2.2 trillion spending bill aims to tackle climate change, expand healthcare, and strengthen social safety nets. Here are some key terms and their impact on you:

Childcare. The proposal will provide universal preschool for all 3 and 4 year olds and provide childcare subsidies for many families. The bill also extends the expanded parent tax credit to 2022.

Paid vacation. The proposal will provide workers with four weeks of paid home leave and sick leave, which will allow the United States to withdraw from the only six countries in the world without any national paid leave. However, this rule is likely to be cancelled in the Senate.

health care. The health clause of the bill is the biggest step towards universal coverage since the Affordable Care Act. It will expand the coverage of children, make insurance more affordable for working-age adults, and improve Americans with disabilities and seniors. Medical insurance benefits.

Drug prices. The plan includes a clause that will allow the government for the first time to negotiate the prices of certain prescription drugs covered by Medicare.

climate change. The largest sum of the bill is US$555 billion for climate projects. The core of climate spending is to provide approximately US$320 billion in tax incentives for producers and purchasers of wind, solar, and nuclear energy.

tax. The plan calls for an increase of nearly $2 trillion in taxes on businesses and the wealthy. The bill also raises the upper limit that residents can deduct from state and local taxes, especially in high-tax blue states, and removes the so-called SALT ceiling.

Although Ms. Pelosi vowed in San Francisco to protect these climate clauses, at least four people in Washington close to negotiations called the clean power plan "dead."

Tina Smith, a Democratic senator from Minnesota and the lead author of the plan, said that although abandoning the plan may win Mr. Manchin’s vote on the budget bill, it may allow her and other Democrats who are concerned about environmental issues. People pay the price.

"We must take strong climate action in rebuilding a better budget," she said. "I am open to all methods, but as I said, I will not support a budget agreement that will not allow us to take climate action. There are 50 Democratic senators, and each of our votes needs to pass this The budget can be approved."

Mr. Manchin has personal financial connections with the coal industry and initially planned to write the details of the plan as chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Mr. Manchin is considering a clean power plan that will reward utility companies to switch from coal to natural gas. Natural gas pollutes less but still emits carbon dioxide and may leak methane, another greenhouse gas. Mr. Manchin’s hometown of West Virginia is one of the largest coal and natural gas producers in the United States.

But according to people familiar with the matter, Mr. Manchin told the government in recent days that he is now totally opposed to the clean energy plan.

As a result, White House staff are scrambling to calculate the impact of other climate measures in the bill on emissions, including tax incentives for renewable energy producers and tax credits for consumers who purchase electric vehicles. Unlike clean energy plans, tax incentives tend to expire after a period of time, and there is no longer-lasting strategic market transfer capability.

These other plans include approximately US$300 billion to provide existing tax credits for utilities, commercial enterprises, and homeowners that use or utilize zero-carbon resources such as wind and solar to generate electricity or generate electricity, as well as for individuals who purchase electric vehicles. $32 billion in tax credits. It may also include $13.5 billion for charging stations for electric vehicles and $9 billion for upgrading the grid to make it more conducive to the transmission of wind and solar energy, and $17.5 billion for reducing carbon dioxide emissions from federal buildings and vehicles.

However, analysts said that although these spending plans will help make the US economy easier and cheaper to transition to a low-emissions future, they are unlikely to reduce emissions as quickly as the clean power plan. .

"In order to clean up the power system as soon as possible, you need to increase the power of clean energy and the punishment for the suppression of polluting energy," Mr. Victor said. "Carrots plus sticks. These tax incentives are carrots. But there are no more sticks."

The Democrats may also try to promote the Clean Power Plan as a separate bill-but as the 2022 midterm elections approach, the timetable for doing so is shrinking.

Emily Cochrane and Jim Tankersley contributed reporting to this article.