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Joe Manchin, America’s climate decider-in-chief, is a coal baron
(The Guardian, 30 Sep 2021) The pivotal Democratic senator owns millions of dollars in coal stocks. Shouldn’t he recuse himself from US climate talks?
Joe Manchin has never been this famous. People around the world now know that the West Virginia Democrat is the essential 50th vote in the US Senate that president Joe Biden needs to pass his agenda into law. That includes Biden’s climate agenda. Which doesn’t bode well for defusing the climate emergency, given Manchin’s longstanding opposition to ambitious climate action.
It turns out that the Senator wielding this awesome power – America’s climate decider-in-chief, one might call him – has a massive climate conflict of interest. Joe Manchin, investigative journalism has revealed, is a modern-day coal baron.
Financial records detailed by reporter Alex Kotch for the Center for Media and Democracy and published in the Guardian show that Manchin makes roughly half a million dollars a year in dividends from millions of dollars of coal company stock he owns. The stock is held in Enersystems, Inc, a company Manchin started in 1988 and later gave to his son, Joseph, to run.
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The Guardian, 30 Sep 2021: Joe Manchin, America’s climate decider-in-chief, is a coal baron
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