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Good morning and welcome to The Climate 202! Today we're wondering if buying a castle in Connecticut would be cheaper than renting an apartment in D.C. 😅 But first:

Senate Democrats are projecting confidence that key climate provisions in their nearly $2 trillion social spending bill will pass muster with the Senate parliamentarian, even as Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) raises repeated objections to a fee on methane emissions.

The Senate parliamentarian, Elizabeth MacDonough, is reviewing this week whether the climate provisions in the Build Back Better Act fit the rules for reconciliation — a special budget process that allows Democrats to bypass a GOP filibuster.

The “Byrd rule" or "Byrd bath," named after the late Senate majority leader Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.), requires that reconciliation bills have a direct effect on the budget, such as through new taxes or spending. 

Senate Finance Chairman Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said yesterday that he thinks a $320 billion package of clean energy tax credits — the most significant climate provision in the House-passed version of bill — satisfies that rule.

"This is clearly in the area of tax policy. It is a federal expenditure well over $300 billion," he told reporters. "And this is, of course, the linchpin in terms of the current effort to try to deal with climate change."

Wyden added in no uncertain terms: "I'm confident we'll clear the Byrd bath requirements."

Democrats and Republicans on the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, which Manchin chairs, were supposed to meet with MacDonough yesterday. But that meeting got postponed until today, committee spokeswoman Sam Runyon confirmed in an email to The Climate 202. Runyon did not provide a reason for the delay.

The reconciliation bill includes Wyden's "Clean Energy for America Act," which would extend three technology-neutral tax credits aimed at encouraging clean electricity, clean transportation and energy efficiency.

Still, Wyden declined to speculate about the fate of an additional $4,500 tax credit for people who buy electric vehicles made in America by union labor. Manchin has expressed concerns about the bonus EV tax credit, saying it discriminates against foreign automakers whose workers are not unionized.

Democrats already dropped a central climate provision for the power sector — dubbed the Clean Electricity Performance Program, or CEPP — from the bill because of Manchin's opposition, The Climate 202 previously reported. 

But Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.), the main architect of the CEPP, told The Climate 202 yesterday that she is "confident" the clean energy subsidies will survive scrutiny from both Manchin and MacDonough.

"I think the hardest working parts … are the clean power tax credits, which seem to me clearly fitting under the constraints of reconciliation," Smith said in an interview.

However, Manchin told reporters yesterday that he continues to have concerns about a fee on emissions of methane, a potent greenhouse gas that can leak from oil and gas wells.

Manchin reiterated that he thinks the methane fee would be duplicative of new methane regulations from the Environmental Protection Agency. 

"If they’re basically complying with the regulations, then they shouldn’t be subject to the fee," he said of oil and natural gas producers.

Manchin made a similar argument when he objected to the CEPP, as CNN's Ella Nilsen noted:

This sounds very reminiscent of Manchin s rhetoric before killing CEPP -- saying that it would pay utilities for things they were already doing (but also saying he didn t want to speed up the transition away from coal-fired power plants). https://t.co/ZuIk0v6RQq

In the House, Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Tex.) has emerged as another vocal foe of the methane fee:

The proposed methane fee will affect energy independence, increase gas prices, and hurt job opportunities.

If producers are complying with EPA methane regulations, then there is no need for a duplicative fee.

We must support climate friendly policies while protecting jobs. https://t.co/3aR9aLAQEs

Spokespeople for Cuellar and Senate Environment and Public Works Chairman Thomas R. Carper (D-Del.), whose panel has jurisdiction over the methane fee, did not respond to requests for comment in time for publication.

Meanwhile, more than 700 leaders in the clean energy industry wrote to Senate leadership today, urging them to support “smart investments” in clean energy and energy efficiency, according to a letter shared exclusively with The Climate 202.

In particular, the letter calls on Congress to create good-paying manufacturing and construction jobs in the clean energy sector as the country recovers from the coronavirus pandemic.

“Hundreds of thousands of clean energy jobs are at stake,” the letter says. “Our nation’s workers, and our climate, cannot afford the cost of inaction.”

The leaders signing the missive included Lynn Abramson, president of the Clean Energy Business Network, and Lisa Jacobson, president of the Business Council for Sustainable Energy.

Pressure pointsBiden wants the federal government to be carbon neutral by 2050

Biden signed an executive order Wednesday aimed at making the federal government carbon neutral by mid-century. The order will leverage billions of dollars toward the purchase of a federal fleet of electric vehicles, greener buildings and carbon-free electricity. It also instructs the government to “buy clean” by prioritizing products that were produced and transported with low greenhouse gas emissions, The Post's Anna Phillips reports.

The administration laid out a timeline of how it will meet its target:

The plan met with opposition from some Republicans. Sen. John Barrasso (Wyo.), the top Republican on the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, said the executive order would hurt states with large fossil fuel reserves.  

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce responded more cautiously, saying it was still reviewing the plan. And some left-leaning groups, including the Center for Biological Diversity and the Sunrise Movement, said the order did not go far enough.

Virginia Gov.-elect Glenn Youngkin (R) told a business group Wednesday that he plans to use executive action to withdraw Virginia from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a cap-and-trade program for the power sector among states in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic, The Post’s Laura Vozzella reports. 

“RGGI describes itself as a regional market for carbon. It is really a carbon tax that is fully passed on to ratepayers,” Youngkin said in a speech to the Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce. “It’s a bad deal for Virginians.”

Democrats say that Virginia will lose out on an important source of funding if it leaves the program. The state raised $227 million early this year in its first auction of carbon credits — money that it put toward flood preparedness and energy assistance.

There is little love for Biden’s plan to create jobs to fight climate change among GOP ranks, E E News’s Emma Dumain reports. 

The House-passed version of the Build Back Better Act includes funding for a new Civilian Climate Corps, a program that could hire hundreds of thousands of young people to take on climate resilience projects, such as restoring forests and wetlands.

The GOP is not impressed: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) last week said it would give “college students … made-up Potemkin jobs in a make-work program.”

Some Democrats said they were surprised by the opposition, given previous bipartisan support for a bill that would have created a conservation corps as part of a coronavirus relief initiative. 

“Of everything in the Build Back Better Act, of all the climate policy initiatives, this struck me as the one that had the most obvious bipartisan support,” Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) told E E News.

A study from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine calls for more research into ocean-based carbon-removal strategies. It reads like a “science fiction novel,” The Post's Sarah Kaplan writes.

“In one scenario, humanity fights climate change by fertilizing the ocean, boosting the growth of tiny photosynthetic creatures that pull carbon out of the atmosphere," Kaplan writes. “In another, scientists change the chemistry of seawater so it can absorb more planet-warming gases. There is even a proposal for sending electrical currents through the waves, breaking apart molecules and enhancing their ability to take up carbon dioxide.”

The idea of hacking the planet to counteract climate change, known as geoengineering, is a controversial one in environmental circles. It's unclear whether these proposals would meaningfully halt global warming, and they could have serious unintended side effects. But the leading science research group points out that climate change has already had devastating effects and makes the case for having the research in place.

Bows, bags and other holiday materials add about 1 million tons of trash to landfills each week, and that doesn't even count the waste from people receiving gifts they don't want or need. Fortunately, The Post's Tik Root has some suggestions on how you can green your gift-giving this holiday season to help the planet. Root shares a variety of options, including buying second-hand items, doing homemade crafts, helping a friend or loved one with a repair, and investing in digital memberships.