As the Senate moves onto the Inflation Reduction Act, bipartisanship is
not in the cards. The two biggest obstacles remaining before Majority
Leader Chuck Schumer can celebrate the best end of summer Labor Day
party of his life are Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) and Senate
Parliamentarian Elizabeth McDonough. The latest reporting suggests that
Sinema is eyeing three changes:

— Burgess Everett and Marianne LeVine scooped yesterday that Sinema
wanted to (1) nix the carried interest loophole pay-for, which
represents less than 2% of the financing for the bill, and (2) add some
$5 billion in drought resiliency funding.

— WaPo’s Tony Romm and Jeff Stein add that Sinema also seems to be (3)
questioning the bill’s corporate minimum tax, an idea she seemed to
endorse last year, though “discussions are fluid” and her “exact
requests are unclear.” Bloomberg and Axios also have similar stories
with an equally cloudy picture of what exactly she wants to do on the
corporate minimum tax. But everyone seems to agree she’s talking to a
lot of Arizona business interests about the bill’s tax provisions.

Meanwhile, Caitlin Emma and Marianne Levine report that there are at
least four policies in the reconciliation bill that their sources
believe could be vulnerable to a Byrd Rule challenge before MacDonough,
who, as Senate Parliamentarian, is the second most powerful person in
Washington (after Sinema) for the next week or so.

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