Prinipled? Manchin is keeping the spotlight on himself -- as he always did as governor etc -- as a foil for Biden, which plays well back home. His stonewalling helps prevent Biden from getting anything done and thereby helps ensure GOP takeover of House and Senate in 2022. Or at least can be portrayed as doing that even though it’s likely anyway.I believe Manchin is a bit more principled than that. He definitely wants to preserve jobs in WV, and that includes coal.
BTW China buys half the coal the USA produces, and will continue to as they're building many more coal-fired electrical energy plants currently, despite their 'Climate Change' promises.
So WV is gonna sell more coal regardless. It just won't go to US plants.
But I'm inclined to believe Manchin when he says it's the larger issues of misleading the public and driving the Nation into unsustainable debts that are informing his stance.
Note that CNN and other MSM would be shouting on the rooftops if people in WV were complaining. They are not.
At that point, Manchin will change parties to be on the side with power and be welcomed with open arms... and his path to reelection in 2024 goes from no chance at all to easy.
I’m guessing he will agree to either nothing or nearly nothing and much aimed at the environment will be gutted from the bill. Including the EV tax credit provisions.
Forget the endless mistakes in the past few weeks, the Demos should have gone to him right out of the gate and said what will it take to get you onboard? How about we steer 250,000 EV and wind power manufacturing jobs into WVa with federal subsidies. Your state can become the epicenter of the new economy, rather than continue to die slowly at coal comes to an end.
But that’s not what is going to happen. WVa will continue to go down the drain, Trump will be back in 2024 and all US efforts to fight climate change will end.