On Monday, during a visit to California’s Office of Emergency Services in the Sacramento area, Mr. Biden appeared to recognize that. Before he received a briefing on the wildfire damage, he reminded dozens of emergency workers in the conference room that he was not able to include all of his proposed investments to combat climate change in a bipartisan agreement that he reached this summer on infrastructure. He said he was focused on including them in the more sweeping $3.5 trillion package but acknowledged that it could fall short of his ambitions.
“Whether that passes or not, exactly how much, I don’t know. But we’re going to get it passed,” Mr. Biden said.
Tax writers in the House have already made a concession of sorts on climate. A bill released earlier this week omits any tax on carbon emissions, even though such revenue could help pay for the giant package, which Democrats plan to pass along party lines and without Republican support. Many Senate Democrats have pushed to include either a direct tax on emissions or an indirect one, like a tariff on goods imported from high-emission countries such as China. But the party is not aligned, and given the slim majorities in the House and Senate, such a plan would probably have trouble gaining the 50 votes needed in the Senate.
Centrist concerns over the size and scope of some proposed tax increases could force party leaders to pare back incentives for low-carbon energy deployment in the plan. So could influential Democrats who have resisted the party’s previous climate legislation, like Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia.
A coal-state moderate, Mr. Manchin is the committee chairman charged with drafting the Senate version of the single largest effort to reduce emissions in the bill: a carrot-and-stick approach to push electric utilities to draw more power from low-carbon sources over the coming decade.