Some people are actually maggots

In Sen. Joe Manchin III’s hilly West Virginia home county, his family’s business has made millions by taking waste coal from long-abandoned mines and selling it to a power plant that emits air pollution at a higher rate than any other plant in the state.

That enterprise could have taken a hit under a key part of President Biden’s climate agenda, a $150 billion plan to push coal plants toward cleaner energy. One lawmaker, though, played a central role in killing that proposal: Manchin, who has earned hundreds of thousands of dollars annually from the family coal company while using his role as a Democratic swing vote in a 50-50 Senate to dictate Biden’s policies.

[...]

When pressed about whether he has a conflict of interest, Manchin bristles. “I have been in a blind trust for 20 years. I have no idea what they’re doing,” the senator told reporters in September, referring to his family’s coal firm. “You got a problem?”

  WaPo

As a matter of fact, I do.

Manchin’s latest financial disclosure report says that the West Virginia family coal business that he helped found and run, Enersystems, paid him $492,000 in interest, dividends and other income in 2020, and that his share of the firm is worth between $1 million and $5 million. He signed a sworn statement saying he is aware of these earnings, underscoring that he is not blind to them.

[...]

Manchin set up a blind trust with $350,000 in cash in 2012. In his latest financial disclosure report, the senator reported that the Joseph Manchin III Qualified Blind Trust earned no more than $15,000 last year and is worth between $500,000 and $1 million. By design, it is not possible to know precisely what’s in the blind trust. But the financial disclosure records show that it doesn’t include all of Manchin’s income from Enersystems.

Well, what a surprise.

[I]t calls into question the impartiality of a senator who in October forced Biden to drop the plan in his Build Back Better bill to phase out the same kinds of coal plants that are key to his family company’s profitability.

[...]

“The question I would ask him would be, when he says it’s in a blind trust, ‘Well, your public financial disclosure report that you sign and swear is true does not have Enersystems in the blind trust,’ ” Fox said. “And if the blind trust is truly blind, how do you know what’s in it?”

[...]

It is legal for Manchin to make millions of dollars from his coal interests even as he chairs the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and legislates on matters affecting the industry. That is because members of Congress are not required to divest their assets to avoid a potential industry conflict.

[...]

Between 2011 and 2020, Manchin earned $4.8 million from Enersystems, according to a tally by the Center for Responsive Politics. His net worth as of 2020 was between $4.4 million and $12.8 million, the center said.

[...]

Compared with ordinary coal plants, power plants that burn waste coal, or what the industry calls “gob,” are dirtier and don’t generate as much electricity. The Grant Town plant emits more greenhouse gases and the main components of acid rain — nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide — into the air per megawatt-hour of electricity produced than any other power plant in West Virginia, according to the Environmental Protection Agency’s most recent data. Only a handful of waste-coal-burning plants still operate nationally. They are such heavy polluters that the Trump administration created a separate category for them, weakening the air pollution standards they had to meet.

[...]

Holman said Manchin’s financial position is one of the most conflicted of any member of Congress he has studied because so much of the senator’s financial stake is in the coal industry while he is playing a key role on climate policies. Nonetheless, he said, “what Manchin is doing is not illegal. The conflict of interest code for Congress is just way too weak.”

What say we fix that? No wonder they haven't wanted to press Trump for all his shady self-dealing.

West Virginia’s embrace of coal power over less expensive alternatives like gas, wind and solar has contributed to a decade of rising electricity bills. According to Van Nostrand’s analysis, between 2010 and 2019 West Virginians’ electricity costs increased about five times more than the national average.

Jesus Christ. Not just polluting West Virginians, but shafting them as well.

Around the time Manchin helped kill the clean electricity provision, he was asked during a walk with reporters on Capitol Hill about whether he has a conflict of interest and was pressed on the fact that his son runs the family coal company. Manchin responded, “I’m very proud of my son. He does a good job. You’d do best to change the subject now.”

And West Virginians would do best to recall their senator.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:  

Exactly.