National Catholic Reporter, by Brian Roewe: With the stroke of his pen, President Joe Biden signed into law Aug. 16 the largest-ever federal action in response to climate change, pumping hundreds of billions of dollars over the next decade into transitioning the nation to clean energy and reducing greenhouse gas emissions that are rapidly heating the planet.
The more than $300 billion in climate provisions included in the Inflation Reduction Act, or IRA, represent a major milestone after decades of mostly failed efforts by the United States, the world’s largest historical source of heat-trapping emissions, to match its response to climate change with the serious threats it poses for the country and the globe.
Faith groups who have worked for years lobbying for significant federal climate legislation celebrated the historic achievement. At the same time, they vowed to take on its shortfalls, specifically continued investments in and potential fast-tracking of new fossil fuel production that have long exposed communities of color to greater levels of pollution.
“Finally! This landmark bill comes none too soon,” Susan Gunn, director of the Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns, said in a statement, referring to the heatwaves, wildfires and flooding this summer across the country and much of the world.
“The cry of the earth, which Pope Francis calls us to heed in his Laudato Si’ encyclical, finally was heard in the halls of Congress. This legislation is a strong start for the United States to do its fair share to care for our common home,” she said.
In a statement after the Aug. 12 House vote sent the bill to Biden’s desk, Catholic Climate Covenant executive director José Aguto praised the bill as providing “authentic hope for future generations, bringing our nation and world closer to emissions reduction goals, closer to each other, and closer to a better world.”
Catholic fingerprints were all over the Inflation Reduction Act and its massive climate investments.
It was Biden, the nation’s second Catholic president, who signed it into law. After doing so, he gifted the pen to Catholic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia. It was Manchin, the focus of intense scrutiny for his ties to the coal industry, who for months wielded his position as a critical swing vote to scale back and hold up the legislation before striking a surprise deal July 27 with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to bring the bill back to life, with an apparent assist from Bill Gates.
And it was House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the Catholic from California, who gaveled the legislation secured in Congress. Before she did, she quoted the pope on the significance of the bill’s climate provisions, saying they represent “values espoused by Pope Francis when he said earlier this summer ‘Our planet has reached a breaking point’ in the fight against climate crisis.'”
At the signing ceremony, held in the State Dining Room of the White House, Biden called the Inflation Reduction Act “one of the most significant laws in our history” and a victory for the American people over special interests, not just today but for generations to come.
“The Inflation Reduction Act invests $369 billion to take the most aggressive action ever — ever, ever, ever — in confronting the climate crisis and strengthening our economic [and] our energy security,” the president said…
“President Joe Biden and Congressional Democrats have passed a law that will make peoples’ lives better by addressing healthcare costs and the crisis of climate change and repairing some of the most egregious injustices in our tax system,” Mary Novak, executive director of Network, the Catholic social justice lobby, said in a statement.
Interfaith Power & Light, a national network of environmental faith-based groups, in a tweet called the Inflation Reduction Act “a huge step towards cutting climate pollution, creating good-paying clean energy jobs, investing in environmental justice, & reduc[ing] energy bills,” though work remains.
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Both the Evangelical Environmental Network and Young Evangelicals for Climate Action echoed those sentiments. “Tomorrow holds more work, but today we celebrate this historic moment alongside countless advocates who have worked tirelessly for the sake of our common home,” the youth evangelical group said in a statement.
In addition to faith groups, the law drew support from labor groups like the BlueGreen Alliance and leading environmental organizations, such as the Sierra Club, 350.org and the Sunrise Movement, though many of them included with their praise concerns about the law’s concessions to the fossil fuel industry.
For years, Catholic and faith groups have lobbied members of Congress to pass major climate legislation. Those efforts accelerated after Biden took office and proposed his Build Back Better agenda.
With the bill’s fate fading earlier this year, the Catholic Climate Covenant, along with 10 national partners, launched in May the Encounter for Our Common Home campaign to bring Catholics into dialogue with their senators around the moral reasons to act on climate change. They also organized a sign-on letter endorsed by 285 Catholic institutions, schools, parishes and dioceses.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops issued multiple action alerts supporting the legislation, including one ahead of the critical Senate vote. In a statement afterward, Archbishop Paul Coakley, head of the domestic justice committee, expressed gratitude for the bill’s “many substantial climate provisions” and called it “a meaningful effort to care for our common home.”
Despite lobbying at the bishops’ conference, dioceses offered less support, with just nine of the 176 signing the Covenant letter to Congress.
Franciscan Sr. Joan Brown, director of New Mexico Interfaith Power & Light, said while they are pleased with the new law’s investments to reduce emissions, develop clean energy and create jobs, “we are very disheartened by the compromises for oil, gas and nuclear that so adversely affect our frontline neighbors in our region.”
Numerous Catholic and faith groups also raised concerns about the provisions that would expand fossil fuel exploration and infrastructure, and they joined other environmental organizations in pledging to oppose the use of federal land for further fossil fuel extraction as well as new oil and gas projects. A group of environmental activists planned to protest outside Schumer’s Manhattan office Aug. 18 against the energy project side deal.
“The passage of this bill only strengthens our commitment to keeping fossil fuels in the ground and to standing in solidarity with communities most threatened by extractive projects,” said Marianne Comfort, justice coordinator for the Sisters of Mercy.
“So, our advocacy continues.”
A version of this story appeared in the Sept 2-15, 2022 print issue under the headline: Biden signs largest-ever action in response to climate change .
Our Comment: “Climate justice,” along with social justice”, “Common Home,” along with “common good” are code words for Catholic-inspired wealth redistribution and control programs. Notice this was an ecumenical effort.
Prophetic Link:
“And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast.” Revelation 13:3.