So Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia will be responsible for putting together the Democratic climate plan. This is both understandable and terrifying. It’s understandable because Democrats need the vote of every one of their senators, which means doing whatever it takes to get skeptics on board. It’s terrifying because Manchin might end up gutting key proposals from President Joe Biden, especially those aimed at drastically reducing the burning of fossil fuels.
The best-case scenario is that Manchin will intervene in ways that help coal miners and highlight his independence without doing too much damage to Biden’s objectives. The worst-case scenario is that he will cripple the climate initiative and effectively doom the planet.
I have no idea which way Manchin will go. Nor do I have any good sense of how much he is being influenced by lobbyists and his personal financial interests, as opposed to a desire to do the right thing.
What I do know, and you should, too, is that if Manchin torpedoes Biden – and the planet – on climate policy, it won’t be because he’s serving the interests of his constituents. Coal mining has a proud history in West Virginia. Among other things, the coal miners’ union played a crucial role in the history of labor organizing, which in turn helped create the relatively equal society I grew up in. But coal is West Virginia’s past, not its present, and definitely not its future.
It’s actually startling how small a role coal plays in modern West Virginia’s economy. Before the pandemic, the coal mining industry employed only around 13,000 workers, less than 2% of the state’s workforce.