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What to know about the Democrats’ sweeping climate bill · Apple News Today

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  [MUSIC FADES IN]
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  Shumita Basu, Narrating: Good morning! It's Tuesday, August 16th. I'm Shumita Basu. This is "Apple News Today." Each morning, hear about some of the most fascinating stories in the news and how the world's best journalists are covering them.
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  [START THE WHITE HOUSE YOUTUBE ARCHIVAL CLIP]
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  President Joe Biden: The American people are going to see lower prescription drug prices, lower health care costs and lower energy costs. And big corporations are finally going to start to pay their fair share.
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  [END THE WHITE HOUSE YOUTUBE ARCHIVAL CLIP]
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  Today, President Biden will sign a major climate, health, and tax bill. It sets aside nearly $370 billion for energy and climate-change spending. "Inside Climate News" reporter Marianne Lavelle told us the way it's designed is a real departure from what climate economists have pushed for in the past.
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  Marianne Lavelle: This bill is all incentives. All carrots, no sticks.
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  She told us instead of taxes on using fossil fuels, there will be tax credits and other incentives to use greener power. The idea is to make clean energy the cheapest choice and, therefore, the most politically attractive choice.
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  Lavelle: It really gives a boost to things like electric vehicles, wind energy, solar energy. There also are benefits for projects that are carbon capture and storage, clean hydrogen. The Democrats wanted to make sure that these tax credits were as broad as possible to bring as many people to the table, to hold together as big a coalition as they could.
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  To get this bill through the Senate, Democrats needed to win over Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia, which is a coal state. He was not down with a carbon tax.
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  Lavelle: And he was in favor of using the approach of incentives, especially if those incentives would especially benefit his state and target energy communities in his state to be part of the transition and to get support in transitioning to good paying jobs.
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  No Republicans voted for the bill, so it passed the Senate with a tie-breaking vote from Vice President Harris.
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  If Republicans take control of Congress in the midterms, or the White House in 2024, they could weaken or entirely roll back Democratic policy on climate. We saw that happen in the Trump administration to some climate policies from the Obama administration. But, Lavelle says, how much they could reel it back may depend on whether public support for climate action grows.
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  Lavelle: Some people are very optimistic that it's going to have the kind of effect that, in a way, the healthcare reform of the Obama era did, that there's a lot of people who benefit from it all over the country. And it becomes very hard to undo when there are so many people benefiting.
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  Independent analysts say the bill could get the U.S. in striking distance of President Biden's pledge to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 50% by the year 2030.
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  Now to Uvalde, Texas, where political views are changing in the months after the school shooting that killed 19 children and two teachers.
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  Elizabeth Findell: We're seeing a lot of local residents really start to embrace moderate gun reform in a way that they really haven't before in this area.
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  Elizabeth Findell covers Texas for "The Wall Street Journal." Uvalde County voted 60% for Trump in 2020, but some people in this deep-red area are rethinking Republican gun policies after a wave of funerals for elementary school kids.
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  Findell: You had hundreds of people marching in the streets, in temperatures so hot people were passing out, to call for greater gun control measures.
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  And it looks like politicians in the area are noticing. The local Representative in Congress is Tony Gonzales. He was one of only ten House Republicans to support the recent gun legislation. Three of the deadliest mass shootings in American history were in or near his district. Findell says political change is happening at multiple levels.
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  Findell: You've had the local city council, the local county commissioners, and the local school board, boards which include both Democrats and Republicans, all pass resolutions asking the governor to call a special session of the legislature to raise the age of purchasing certain weapons to 21 or older.
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  So far, Governor Greg Abbott hasn't announced a special session. Heading into the midterms, many people in Uvalde are eager to vote. Miguel Cerrillo, whose eleven-year-old daughter testified to the House about surviving the shooting, told the "Journal" that he registered to vote for the first time this summer. He didn't say his party affiliation, but he did say he wanted members of the city council, school board, and Governor Abbott out.
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  And now, a story that crosses from Texas to New York, with migrant families caught in the middle. For months now, the governors of Texas and Arizona have been sending buses full of migrants to New York and Washington DC. "Gothamist" reports that the buses sometimes don't have enough food or water. A diabetic child was put on a bus without any insulin. A New York City official told ABC News that many of the migrants were confused and lied to before getting on the bus. There's not always government help for the new arrivals, so they rely on volunteers, like this woman in New York, who spoke to Reuters…
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  [START REUTERS ARCHIVAL CLIP]
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  Evelin Zapata: They don't know anybody. Most of them don't have anybody to help. They don't know where to go, so we're taking them to shelters.
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  [END REUTERS ARCHIVAL CLIP]
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  The governors of Texas and Arizona say they don't think the Biden administration is doing enough to help border states deal with people crossing illegally. Governor Abbott spoke in April about launching plans to bus migrants to D.C…
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  [START NBC NEWS ARCHIVAL CLIP]
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  Governor Greg Abbott: We are sending them to the United States capital where the Biden administration will be able to more immediately address the needs of the people that they are allowing to come across our border.
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  [END NBC NEWS ARCHIVAL CLIP]
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  New York City's mayor, Eric Adams, has accused Abbott of using migrants as political pawns. Advocates for homeless people in New York have blamed Adams for failing to plan for enough shelter beds. And as for the people on the buses who are caught in political crossfire, many aren't sure where they'll sleep tonight. One migrant talked to Reuters about the harrowing journey.
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  Unidentified Speaker: [SPEAKING THROUGH TRANSLATOR]
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  Translator: We arrived today from Texas, crossing Venezuela, Columbia, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico and Texas. After three days in Texas, we were brought here. It's better in New York. There are more work opportunities.
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  [END REUTERS ARCHIVAL CLIP]
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  So far, thousands of migrants have been bused into New York and D.C. The governors say more are on the way.
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  Let's turn the music down right now, because I need you to listen closely to something unusual…
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  [START YOUTUBE ARCHIVAL CLIP]
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  [HEARBEAT SOUND]
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  What you're hearing is a simulation of the very, very slow heartbeat of a blue whale. It's still playing, but you won't hear another heartbeat until about… now.
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  [START YOUTUBE ARCHIVAL CLIP]
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  [HEARBEAT SOUND]
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  Slow, right? That long gap between blue whale heartbeats is really interesting to scientists. "Vox" explains why, and also how this research is pretty tricky. You can't exactly pop a stethoscope on a creature that's bigger than a dinosaur, with a heart that weighs over 1,000 pounds. But a few years ago, scientists managed to attach an EKG sensor to a whale's flipper using a 20-foot pole.
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  And they got data on just how slowly a whale's heart can go, sometimes just two beats per minute. That gives us some clues on how to answer a pretty basic question: how did blue whales evolve to get so big? Large hearts beat more slowly, and they take longer to replenish oxygen. If whales were any bigger, they could need even larger hearts. But that would also mean they'd need to spend more time near the surface to catch their breath, leaving them less time to dive down deep for food, which is what allows them to grow bigger in the first place. It's a trade-off between heart size and body size, and it seems like blue whales have managed to strike this incredible balance to be the largest animal ever known to have lived on Earth.
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  You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app, including coverage of the primary races today in Wyoming and Alaska. And when you're in the app, keep listening to hear narrated articles from our News+ partners. I'll talk with you again tomorrow.
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