In a Senate with a remarkably slight advantage to the Democrats, Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) has, with assistance from Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), gone against his party, voting to block the Clean Electricity Performance Program, a key component of Biden’s Build Back Better Infrastructure Bill, the program aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions in energy production.

Manchin’s decision to oppose the bill makes some sense, despite being short-sighted, given that West Virginia is a coal state and coal in no way would be a part of the clean energy future envisioned in the bill. Thus, Manchin might just be looking out for the state of West Virginia and seeking to preserve the livelihoods of the people there. Manchin is also personally financially invested in coal, through both his own investments and the people who have decided to invest in Manchin, but who says he just isn’t killing two birds with one stone?

All measures show that coal is declining fast in West Virginia, and the state does not have very many alternatives to take its place. According to Business Insider, the peak of coal mining in the United States was in April of 1985, when there were 178,000 jobs in the sector. That number has now fallen to 42,000 as of September 2021. This culminates in West Virginia having a labor force participation rate of 55%, dead last in the United States and 8% lower than the national average. Due to this shrinkage, coal is not even in the top five largest employers of the state and yet it has a stranglehold on politics there, leading to battles to hopelessly maintain the coal sector even at the cost of other opportunities, such as blocking a multimillion-dollar natural gas plant in 2020. These poorly thought-out choices have led to economic distress as detailed above.

Clearly, the state needs to look for something to keep itself afloat. To solve the economic distress, keeping the state in energy production is a possibility; many political scientists and sociologists believe that a slow change over to the production of renewables would be beneficial to West Virginia. In fact, the Biden plan which Manchin has so vehemently rejected would impact West Virginia by increasing employment by 3,500 jobs and grow earnings by $172 million annually. All the while, shifting away from coal would bring cleaner and healthier air to West Virginia.

Going into the environmental factors more, West Virginia would be hit particularly hard by climate change. As more and more greenhouse gases are released due to burning coal, the more flooding will occur and, according to research by the First Street Foundation, West Virginia is at the top or near the top of almost every list involved with infrastructure risks due to flooding. These facts have already been felt by the state, with more and more extreme rains becoming common, causing property damage with more to follow as the state tops the list with power stations and roads at flood risk and then tying for schools and commercial properties at risk of flooding.

 

Moreover, Manchin is in bad company. He has a strong network of lobbyists and has gathered attention from billionaire Charles Koch, known for the petroleum-based Koch industries. Billionaire Nelson Peltz says he talks with Manchin every week. Largely due to donors with ties to the fossil fuel industry, Manchin raised $1.5 million for his 2018 reelection campaign.

On top of that, Manchin has a $5 million stake in Enersystems, a coal brokerage he founded that is now run by his son. Honestly, I am at a loss for what to say about that. This man is the Chair of the United States Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. Given his ties to fossil fuels, this is obviously a conflict of interest, but there are not many ways to lessen this kind of behavior and the influence of major companies in politics. One potential solution presented was the For the People Act, but ironically, the act would probably not pass given that Joe Manchin is one of the only Democrats who has refused to vote to overturn the filibuster.