For months, Sen. Joe Manchin III has sold his opposition to the Build Back Better proposal as driven uniformly by a brave and hardheaded assessment of the national interest. He has warned that BBB will fuel inflation and that its climate provisions will
push energy markets to evolve too quickly and
lead to a dangerous dependence on Chinese supply chains.
It just got harder for the West Virginia Democrat to get away with this stance. And the culprit is none other than coal miners in his home state, whose union is redoubling calls for Manchin to support President Biden’s agenda.
What’s happening now with miners seems like a seminal moment. Some of the worst tropes in our politics — Democrats harbor nothing but elitist ill will toward miners, and miners’ “way of life” must be defended at all costs — are cracking up and falling away.
All this emerges from a
new report in the New York Times that illustrates the true nature of home-state cross-pressures on Manchin. He’s caught between the miners union and mine owners, who vehemently oppose BBB.
The United Mine Workers of America
backs BBB because it will help mine workers transition to a future they now see as inevitable. BBB contains tax incentives to spur manufacturing and consumption of alternative energy sources such as wind and solar, to hasten our transition to a decarbonized economy.
Greg Sargent: The hidden, ugly truth behind Joe Manchin’s stance on BBB’s climate provisions
Crucially, some of those tax incentives would steer some of this renewable manufacturing to coal-producing regions,
to smooth the transition for workers away from fossil-fuel toil. Miners
also support BBB because it would replenish a fund that aids miners suffering from black lung disease.
But here’s the rub: The mine owners oppose the tax incentives. Apparently, this is
precisely because they would speed the transition to clean energy sources, which is bad for the coal business.