Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., called out his Democratic colleagues who want to quickly transition the U.S. away from oil and natural gas as a source of energy.
“This is bulls–t. So, they’re going to basically starve us out of energy that we have a tremendous, abundant supply of because of their aspirational thoughts?” Manchin told Politico on Wednesday, one day after President Joe Biden’s State of the Union Address in which the president admitted that the country was “still going to need oil and gas for a while.”
“I will continue to fight, and I’ll do everything I can to make sure the public knows what they’re doing and what it will do to you and your economy and your lifestyle,” Manchin added.
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Earlier at Wednesday’s Senate Democratic retreat, Manchin handed out a flier to his colleagues with information about the Inflation Reduction Act, which passed on a party-line vote last August, and how it provides a path to gradually move away from fossil fuels and make sure they are not “arbitrarily eliminated based on political agendas.”
The flier referred to the act as an “American Energy Security Bill” and said that it “requires” a “continued fossil fuel pathway to provide reliable, affordable energy to Americans.” It added that the act also “boosts U.S. oil and gas production by [reinstating canceled] federal offshore oil and gas lease sales” and “supports using fossil fuels in the cleanest way possible.”
More progressive Democrats, such as the far-left “Squad,” have called for a faster transition to more renewable energy sources. Such a move could potentially damage local-level economies, including in Manchin’s home state of West Virginia, one of the largest sources of coal exportation in the U.S.
Manchin is also reportedly upset over how the Biden administration has been rolling out the Inflation Reduction Act, specifically over guidelines relating to the electric vehicle tax credits that were part of the bill, according to Politico.
“I’ve been raising hell,” he told the outlet about his recent efforts to halt the credits until more strict requirements are implemented on the production of electric vehicle batteries, products he wants to be manufactured in the U.S.