Sorry, Senator, but the Dems don’t need your vote anymore and don’t care what you think anymore.
Manchin was front and center at the White House signing ceremony, where Biden handed Manchin the pen that he used to sign the bill into law.
But Manchin has increasingly become critical of the Biden administration over their application of the law.
And Biden administration officials feel that Manchin misinterpreted stipulations of the legislation that he crafted, with officials also viewing the West Virginia lawmaker’s demands as opening them up to violating the law, three individuals with ties to the administration told The Washington Post.
In February, the senator said he was “raising hell” to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen over battery sourcing rules for electric vehicle tax credits.
And during an April interview on the Fox News program “Hannity,” Manchin threatened to repeal the consequential law.
“This was about energy security and we have not heard a word about energy security out of their mouths since it was passed. It’s all about the environment,” Manchin said at the time.
Manchin has been infuriated with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission over its pursuit of longstanding climate goals. And the lawmaker, who has been a key ally of the coal industry throughout his entire career, was especially frustrated by its push to craft regulations that would study climate impact as natural gas projects are developed, according to The Post.
So for the time-being, Manchin has basically kept the five-member commission from running with a Democratic majority, as it now has two members from each party and a vacancy. The senator refused to hold a hearing for former chair Richard Glick, whose term on the commission ended in early January.
Manchin has been around long enough to know exactly what would happen if he co-wrote framework legislation that would later be defined and implemented by an administrative system controlled entirely by Obama 3.0. He can’t be that dumb.
Maybe this is how Manchin sells out his coal constituents while maintaining some degree of deniability.
Manchin’s polling in W VA is not good at all. A year ago I suggested that he was positioning himself for a run at President. Now…..dogcatcher may be beyond his reach.