The death toll in the Pacific Northwest because of the heat dome that parked over the region is bumping up against 1,000 people—more than 700 so far in British Columbia alone. The heat dome remains parked above the inland Northwest, extending into California. So when climate “activists" say that the infrastructure proposal moving through Congress must include unprecedented levels of funding to slow global warming, they have damned good justification. Life and death justification. Happening right now, while Congress remains in recess.

That means Democrats have to figure out how to pass that massive funding bill through budget reconciliation, which requires no Republican votes, and they have to figure it out soon, navigating Republicans and their own “moderate” members who think working with Republicans is actually a thing that can happen. The plan that the bipartisan “gang” has been cooking up is not going to do the job. “The bipartisan infrastructure deal is not a climate bill,” said Jamal Raad, executive director of Evergreen Action. “And we know that fossil fuel lobbyists in Washington are already hard at work to eliminate key climate provisions from the (Democrat-only) package.”

We know that because an ExxonMobile lobbyist spilled the beans in a brilliant sting pulled off by Greenpeace U.K. The lobbyist, Keith McCoy, singled out his “crucial” Democratic targets who just happen to be among the Democrats participating in this bipartisan effort: Sens. Joe Manchin, Kyrsten Sinema, Jon Tester, Maggie Hassan, Chris Coons, and Mark Kelly. “We’re playing defense because President Biden is talking about this big infrastructure package and he’s going to pay for it by increasing corporate taxes,” McCoy said on the video call. If the plan could be shrunk down to just “roads and bridges,” from $2 trillion to $800 billion, then the tax increases could be minimized or eliminated. The bipartisan gang’s effort is essentially just “roads and bridges,” just like ExxonMobil wants.