Activists rallied outside Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s Park Slope home on Tuesday, demanding he remove a clause that would approve a gas pipeline from the debt bill.
Photo courtesy of Food and Water Watch
Hundreds of environmental activists gathered outside Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s home in Park Slope on Tuesday evening to protest the pol’s link to fossil fuel donors, and to oppose the inclusion of a controversial natural gas pipeline in the legislature’s hotly-debated budget deal.
The House of Representatives is expected to vote Wednesday on a bill supported by President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, which would suspend the nation’s debt limit through 2025 — avoiding a catastrophic scenario where America would default on its debts, and likely plunge the economy into a massive recession.
As part of the months-long negotiations over the bill, the Republican-controlled House agreed to a deal with the President and the Democratic-controlled Senate that will green-light a massive fossil fuel project, called the Mountain Valley Pipeline that runs through Virginia and West Virginia.
Sen. Joe Manchin, a conservative Democrat from West Virginia, who has pushed in favor of the project, reportedly secured the approval, as his vote is key in the upper legislative chamber, where Democrats hold the majority by a slim margin.
Environmentalists say the provision would speed up the construction of the $6.6 billion pipeline, which is planned to carry two billion cubic feet of fracked gas per day, mostly for export.
“Any deal that holds the economy and climate hostage for the profit of dirty energy donors is a betrayal,” said Food & Water Watch Senior New York Organizer Eric Weltman. “Senator Schumer must pass a clean debt bill without fossil fuel giveaways.”
The 300-mile pipeline would run over nearly 1,000 streams and wetlands and would lead to annual emissions of over 89 million metric tons…
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