Three months ago, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden stood before cameras in Wilmington, Delaware, and promised to take the biggest, most sweeping measures to fight climate change ever seen in the United States. He would spend $2 trillion on boosting renewables and energy efficiency. He would completely eliminate carbon dioxide emissions from the electricity sector. It was, according to one writer, a promise to implement the Green New Deal — “minus the crazy.”
But now, even though Biden won the seemingly never-ending presidential election, those hopes have been dashed. After losing tight, high-profile Senate races in Montana, Maine, and Iowa, the Democratic party currently holds 48 seats. And they may not get any more. The only remaining seats up for grabs are in North Carolina — where the Democratic candidate, Cal Cunningham, is lagging behind after a sexting scandal — Alaska, and Georgia. (The Georgia Senate seats will likely go to a runoff in January, but Democrats would have to win both seats if, as expected, they lose in Alaska and North Carolina.)
“It’s hard to overstate how important the Senate is to Biden’s plans,” said David Konisky, a political scientist at Indiana University. “So many of his big ideas and large initiatives simply have no future if there’s no legislation.”
