Manchin attacked EPA’s new rules. They could cost him millions.
The West Virginia senator accused the Biden administration of killing coal plants. One, in particular, has helped enrich him.
When Sen. Joe Manchin upbraided EPA on Wednesday for requiring power plants to reduce their carbon emissions, he didn’t mention that the agency’s rules could threaten his personal income.
The West Virginia Democrat vowed to oppose President Joe Biden’s EPA nominees because the agency’s rules being proposed Thursday could push coal- and gas-fired power plants “out of existence,” he said.
The risk to one plant, in particular, could jeopardize a lucrative source of money for Manchin. His family business Enersystems Inc. delivers waste coal to the Grant Town power plant, a financially struggling coal facility near Manchin’s hometown that he has spent much of his political career protecting.
The Grant Town plant has repeatedly threatened to shut down. Now, with the release of EPA rules that are expected to push many power plants into installing expensive technology to capture their carbon emissions before the pollution escapes into the sky, the plant faces an increasingly troubled future. Many coal plants might shut down rather than comply with the stringent new climate rules.
“This is going to make it harder for them to stay around. You won’t find written anywhere in the rule that this is supposed to be putting coal plants out of business, but just do the math,” said Brian Murray, director of the Nicholas Institute for Energy, Environment & Sustainability at Duke University.
Last year, Manchin earned $537,000 from Enersystems, according to financial disclosure records he filed with the Senate. He has been paid more than $5 million by the company since being elected to the Senate in 2010. The Grant Town plant is the main facility to receive coal from Manchin’s family business. Enersystems is now run by Manchin’s son, Joe Manchin IV.
Spokespeople for Manchin and Grant Town did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Manchin, who faces a strong Republican challenger with deep connections to the coal industry in next year’s election, expressed outrage in a 221-word statement released Wednesday against the Biden administration’s “extreme ideology” for targeting fossil fuel carbon emissions.
“This Administration is determined to advance its radical climate agenda and has made it clear they are hellbent on doing everything in their power to regulate coal and gas-fueled power plants out of existence, no matter the cost to energy security and reliability,” Manchin said.
The Grant Town plant generates 80 megawatts of power, making it one of the smaller plants in West Virginia and the only one that continues to burn waste coal, a mix of mud and minerals that is often found discarded near old mines. Waste coal is a high-carbon fuel.
Environmental regulations have long threatened the Grant Town plant.
In 2021, Richard Halloran, the president of the plant’s operator, Grant Town Holdings Corp., said in state testimony that he planned to use the facility to power cryptocurrency mining as a way to diversify its income stream. He noted that the plan, which he described as a financial lifeline for the struggling plant, carried inherent risks because of the freewheeling nature of cryptocurrency.
“This will give us less protection against the anti fossil fuel (coal) sentiment and legislation and taxation, but we will try to fight this battle as hard as possible,” Halloran said.
West Virginia, which still gets about 90 percent of its power from coal, is an outlier in the United States. Many states, including New York, have moved beyond coal entirely, replacing it with natural gas and renewables.
A version of this report first ran in E&E News’ Climatewire. Get access to more comprehensive and in-depth reporting on the energy transition, natural resources, climate change and more in E&E News.