Maverick Joe Manchin on shaky ground in climate coal country

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At a pub down the street from Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin’s office in the hill town of Fairmont, a group of drinkers discuss what Joe Biden’s multibillion-dollar climate legislation means for their home in West Virginia, the US’s most climate-dependent state. coal.

“We no longer expect people to come home covered in soot with a wad of cash in their pocket to help us shop,” said Jonathan Harden, a brewer who has lived in the city for 22 years. “He has moved on”.

“But the mines are still open,” retorted one drinker. “Why would you be from West Virginia and sign a White House document saying you are against coal mining in West Virginia?”

Left handed he spent months blocking Democrats’ efforts to pass a big climate bill last summer before relenting. The mercurial state senator, whom Biden’s top clean energy aide had accused of “single-handedly destroying the planet,” went almost overnight from persistently opposing environmental protection measures to allowing the most largest green spending package in American history.

Democrats hope the Inflation Reduction Actcontaining nearly $370 billion in subsidies, it can unleash a wave of green jobs across America, bringing prosperity to the faltering economies of the depressed Appalachian region.

But shortly after Manchin supported the planhis approval rating in West Virginia, one of the regions likely to benefit from the green spending spree, has plummeted.

An October Morning Consult poll showed that 51 percent of West Virginia voters disapproved of Manchin’s job performance, up from 38 percent in the second quarter of the year, placing him among the least popular senators in the country.

In a Senate hinged on razor-thin margins, Biden cannot afford to lose a valuable seat in 2024. For Democrats, winning means persuading the people of West Virginia, who voted overwhelmingly to Donald Trump in 2020, that Biden’s big climate spending may create jobs, rather than speeding up coal mine closures and suspending pipeline plans.

“No politician in West Virginia can get statewide office saying the climate is changing and we need to do something about it,” said Hoppy Kercheval, host of a longtime radio show based in Morgantown. “This is a political failure.

“It’s framed as — well, if you think the climate is changing and we need to have green energy, then it’s bad for coal, it’s bad for natural gas, all the jobs associated with that.”

Manchin, who has yet to formally confirm that he will run again, is widely seen as the only Democrat who can win in the state. He faces a challenge from West Virginia’s hugely popular Republican governor and billionaire coal magnate, Jim Justice, who has announced a run for the Senate.

Justice, who is rarely seen in public without her pet bulldog, Babydog, called Manchin’s support for Biden’s climate legislation “a real, real mess.” The poll released last month found that two out of three voters in West Virginia approve of Justice’s performance, making him one of the most popular governors in the country.

“People are concerned that the government is attacking the coal industry,” said Greg Thomas, a Republican political consultant who worked on the Trump campaign in the state in 2020. “Here in West Virginia we love guns, we love kids and we love coal,” said Tommaso. “Democrats hate guns, they hate kids and they hate coal.”

Manchin’s office declined requests for an interview.

While there are no provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act that would directly harm the coal industry, the legislation explicitly supports clean energy alternatives. Democrats fear West Virginia voters won’t recognize the benefits of the legislation, which has fueled several large investments in the state so far.

Doug Skaff, a Democratic politician from West Virginia, complained that voters were rejecting green subsidies because they had come under a Democratic president. “If the IRA came under Trump, the people of West Virginia would think it’s the best,” Skaff said. “But because it was passed under Biden, they don’t like it.”

Kercheval suggested that growing polarization and simplification was making it difficult for the message that the IRA could bring in money and jobs to resonate with voters.

“We live in an environment where so much of politics is a bumper sticker,” he said.

“So, the IRA, Biden – bad. Green energy stuff – bad. In a state that is deep red, it’s easier to do it politically than what Manchin is trying to do, which is to the people: “look at all the advantages there are here.”

Facing waning popularity and attacks from conservative Republicans, Manchin has increasingly sought to distance himself from the climate and green energy parts of the IRA, accusing the Biden administration of “manipulating the law to further their radical climate agenda”.

Last month, he appeared on Fox News and threatened to vote to repeal the bill, accusing Biden of breaking a promise he was made that the legislation was about “energy security.”

“We have gas. We have oil. We have coal,” Manchin said. “We can do it better than anywhere else in the world.”

Meanwhile, Justice has been bragging about his part in several projects that have landed in the state since Biden signed on subsidy packageincluding the arrival of a Form Energy battery plant in the historic steel town of Weirton, a $22 million battery manufacturing facility by Next Energy, and a $500 million renewable-powered titanium smelting facility by Precision Castparts Corp.

“Republicans like Jim Justice like to be critical of the Inflation Reduction Act, but he’s the first to pose for a photo at a ribbon cutting or grand opening at one of these newly created job sites,” said Mike Pushkin, chairman of the Democratic Party in West Virginia.

In Charleston, the state capital, Jerry Lewis, 83, said he liked both Manchin and Justice.

“He’s a redneck hillbilly, and that makes it easy for everyone to like him,” she said of Justice. “But the Inflation Reduction Act is a good thing. At some point we have to get out of fossil fuels.”