“The Senate advanced a climate and tax package past a procedural hurdle in the narrowly divided chamber, as Democrats unified around elements of President Biden’s agenda that have languished on Capitol Hill for more than a year,” the Wall Street Journal reports,

“With the vote, which was approved 51-50 thanks to a tiebreaking vote by Vice President Kamala Harris, lawmakers could soon begin an hourslong amendment battle.”

“The package could receive a final vote in the 50-50 Senate as soon as Sunday morning before heading to the House, where it is scheduled to receive a vote on Friday.”

New York Times: “The action suggested that Democrats, after more than a year of internal feuding and painstaking negotiation, had finally coalesced behind legislation that would provide hundreds of billions of dollars for climate and energy programs, extend Affordable Care Act subsidies and create a new federal initiative to reduce the cost of prescription drugs, particularly for older Americans.”

Former President Donald Trump slammed the Democratic-led climate, health, and tax bill, arguing that Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky was “taken for a ride” by Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Insider reports.

Said Trump: “I told the old broken crow, Mitch McConnell, that this was going to happen. I said, ‘It’s going to happen to you, Mitch. It’s going to happen to you.'”

“The Senate parliamentarian has given the green light to a $740 billion budget reconciliation bill that will reform the tax code, tackle climate change and lower drug prices, putting the Senate on track to begin voting on the bill Saturday afternoon,” The Hill reports.

“Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) announced Saturday that the bill is on track to pass this weekend, now that the parliamentarian, Elizabeth McDonough, has ruled that its provisions comply with the budgetary rules enabling it to circumvent a GOP filibuster.”

“The Senate parliamentarian narrowed Democrats’ plan for curbing drug prices but left it mostly unscathed Saturday, Democrats said, as party leaders prepared to start moving their sprawling economic bill through the chamber,” the AP reports.

“Elizabeth MacDonough, the chamber’s rules arbiter, said provisions must be removed that would force drugmakers to pay rebates if their prices rise above inflation for products they sell to private insurers. Pharmaceutical companies would have to pay those penalties if their prices for drugs bought by Medicare rise too high.”

Playbook: “There are two crucial policies to lower drug prices in the bill. The first is the one you hear the most about: requiring the federal government to negotiate prices for a limited number of expensive prescription drugs covered by Medicare. One of the key enforcement mechanisms for this policy is an excise tax of up to 95% on pharmaceutical companies to force them into the price negotiation regime. Republicans strongly believed this excise tax violated the strict rules of reconciliation outlined in the Byrd rule.”

“But MacDonough rejected challenges to the excise tax and declared that it can be included in the bill — though she did not explain her reasoning, at least in her written guidance, a fact that has frustrated Republicans this morning.”