While pressuring Democratic leaders to form a new congressional committee with a mandate to pass a Green New Deal, climate action groups and progressives lawmakers including Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) are also raising deep concerns over the corporate-friendly Democrat who’s expected to serve as the party’s top member on the Senate Energy and National Resources Committee—a gift to the fossil fuel industry which has long buttressed his political career.
As ranking member of the committee, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.V.) would be in the position to reject nominees for positions in the Interior and Energy Departments and stop the panel from approving attempts to waive environmental laws concerning logging as well as energy industries—a responsibility Ocasio-Cortez says Manchin is unlikely to fulfill given his ties to Big Coal.
“Senator Joe Manchin is the worst possible choice to lead Senate Democrats’ work on energy policy. Do not allow a senator in the pocket of the coal industry to serve as the ranking member of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.” —CREDO Action”I have concerns because I don’t think we should be financed by the industries that we are supposed to be legislating and regulating,” Ocasio-Cortez told The Hill.
CREDO Action echoed the sentiment, circulating a petition signed by more than 65,000 people and reading, “Senator Joe Manchin is the worst possible choice to lead Senate Democrats’ work on energy policy. Do not allow a senator in the pocket of the coal industry to serve as the ranking member of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.”
Manchin received $35,000 from coal companies in 2018, while the oil and gas sector contributed more than $156,000 to his campaign. While a majority of Americans—even in states that had booming coal businesses in past decades—believe the country needs to invest in renewable energy, Manchin has joined President Donald Trump in stubbornly defending the coal industry.
Washington’s Democratic governor, Jay Inslee, has started a petition to pressure Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to give the ranking member position to another Democrat. Inslee fought for a ballot initiative that would have created the country’s first carbon tax in his state, while Manchin was one of four Democrats who voted to prohibit a federal tax on carbon emissions in 2015.
Manchin “simply can’t be trusted to make the bold, progressive decisions we need,” the governor’s petition read.
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