President Joe Biden, who has been criticized by Republicans and Democrats alike for his rather unproductive presidency, may have just ushered in the most important legislation in the last decade. 

The Inflation Reduction Act makes meaningful strides towards the type of climate justice that politicians like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders have consistently advocated for. By providing incentive structures for companies to shift towards green energy, allowing the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate fossil fuel emissions and much more, the act puts multiple sectors of the economy on a path to sustainable development. It funnels billions of dollars towards climate change mitigation, in the form of everything from direct consumer rebates, which allow families to buy energy efficient home appliances, to developing a more robust clean energy grid. As a legislative package, it certainly has the potential to create a sustainable future for the United States. 

As expected, though, passing the Inflation Reduction Act involved a lot of negotiation. Because Senate Republicans unanimously opposed the bill, it required the votes of all 50 Democrats to pass. This included Joe Manchin from West Virginia, a 75-year-old Senator who holds millions of dollars in a coal brokerage business. Without his vote, the legislation would be dead. After engaging in secret negotiations with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Manchin ultimately conceded support for the bill in exchange for putting another piece of legislation on the agenda: a Permitting Reform Bill that would promote several fossil-fuel projects, such as the Mountain Valley Pipeline. The pipeline will carry over 2 billion cubic tons of fracked gas across Indigenous communities in Appalachia, creating carcinogens in the water supply and concentrating environmental harm in areas that are already impoverished. 

Manchin’s dirty deal is emblematic of today’s political landscape, in which systematically disadvantaged communities are treated as disposable. Because Indigenous communities in Appalachia, for example, are a small minority of US constituents, elected officials do not need their support to win election cycles and regularly ignore their needs. This, of course, is deeply problematic; the cost of progressive climate legislation should never be human lives. Manchin’s permitting bill ensures that the IRA will amplify environmental racism. The most marginalized classes will continue to be disproportionately harmed by the climate crisis for as long as politicians are willing to use them as sacrifices in their negotiations. 

This doesn’t mean that the Inflation Reduction Act itself is a bad thing—we deserve to feel happy and hopeful about legislation that finally addresses some of the root causes of global warming. However, it’s equally vital to recognize the massive cost of this bill. The only way to stop politicians like Manchin from wielding such destructive power over legislative outcomes is to make it clear that US constituents, by and large, will not accept the establishment of “sacrifice zones.” The climate movement is only just beginning in earnest, and as we continue to fight for our future, we need to remember to uplift the voices that politicians are so ready to silence. •