GOP’s bad blood threatens Manchin side deal

Senate Republicans are threatening to sink Sen. Joe Manchin’s side deal on permitting reform, partly because they are still angry over the West Virginia Democrat’s flip-flop on the sweeping climate, health and tax bill that Congress passed last month.

Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) promised in late July to add Manchin’s permitting reform legislation to a must-pass end-of-September government funding bill in order to secure Manchin’s vote for the Inflation Reduction Act, which included hundreds of billions of dollars to fight climate change.

The initial plan was to pass the stopgap funding measure with permitting reform first in the Senate, putting pressure on House Democrats to go along with it to avoid a possible government shutdown in early October.

But now Republican senators say a continuing resolution combined with Manchin’s permitting reform proposal probably won’t get 10 GOP votes in the upper chamber.