Manchin Poised to Profit From Mine Reclamation Funding He Championed
by Donald Shaw (Sept. 23rd, 2021)
Article link:
https://prospect.org/power/manchin-p...ation-funding/
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Here is an excerpt from the article which tells you quite a bit about how the Manchin family in W. Virginia is benefitting from this and how Manchin has been actively working against our own democratic party and working against Climate Change goals our country needs to adopt to help save the planet.
I hope this news article goes viral and that Manchin is held accountable for his shady business tactics, both as a congressman and as a business owner.
Quote:
Enersystems was founded by Sen. Manchin in 1988 and is now run by his son. Since joining the Senate, Manchin has been paid more than $4.5 million by the company in which he owns shares that he says in his most recent annual financial disclosure are worth between $1 million and $5 million. Last year, the company paid him nearly $500,000. AmBit’s Grant Town plant has been the only recipient of Enersystems’ coal sales to power plants since 2008, according to The Intercept’s review of U.S. Energy Information Agency and the Public Service Commission of West Virginia.
According to the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, as of 2020 there were at least 140,355 acres of unfunded AML problem areas in West Virginia. Cleaning up those sites would cost nearly $2 billion, according to the committee. The $11.3 billion in new AML project funding is currently sitting in the House, where Democratic leaders are pursuing a two-track approach that links the Senate’s infrastructure bill with passage of the reconciliation package of new spending and tax measures that is currently being developed.
Although cleaning up abandoned mine sites may be beneficial for the people who live near them, burning waste coal taken from the sites may also be worse for the air and human health than burning coal from traditional sources. The Grant Town plant produces more sulfur dioxide and nitrous oxide per unit of energy output than any other coal plant in the state, according to Vice’s reporting on 2018 calculations from Jim Kotcon of the West Virginia Sierra Club.
“There’s no doubt that West Virginia needs the mineland reclamation funding that the senator is pushing for, reclaiming old sites,” Kotcon told Sludge. “The issue is that burning the gob creates pollution from the plant, which hopefully is better controlled than the spontaneous burning of gob piles, and it is not always clear that the land and streams really do see a net benefit. Add in the greenhouse gas emissions and increasing price competition from renewables, and we conclude that a land reclamation approach is preferable to burning the gob.”
While Manchin pushed forward this program from which he may profit, he has also worked to kill legislation that could harm his business and those of his donors in the fossil fuel industry. He is currently working to revise President Biden’s proposed clean electricity standard, currently being debated in Congress’ reconciliation package, that would require power companies to gradually increase their renewable energy sources until they are no longer emitting carbon dioxide. Under a $150 billion fund in the reconciliation bill, the government would pay companies that clean up their electricity supply and fine those that miss deadlines. Manchin recently said on CNN that power companies are already on course to renewable energy due to market forces and that the fund “makes no sense at all.” According to The New York Times, Manchin’s version is expected to have less ambitious clean energy standards and provide rewards to companies that build new natural gas powered-plants.
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