Tornado Alley (PROG)

[B402]

Thanks for that....And you are welcome to yours...Opinion that is...

I will note Two things, The sea of red on the election maps showing the counties

I can speak to WV the best....Manchin represents the Coal Miners and industry......He makes money in coal and he represents what was a big part of the economy here....

He's looking for ways to replace coal jobs with clean energy ones.....Rob Portman got in the way on the infrastructure bill..

Manchin clean energy manufacturing priority left out of bipartisan infrastructure bill

https://news.yahoo.com/daily-energy-manchin-clean-energy-160900619.html

WHAT’S HAPPENING WITH A MANCHIN PRIORITY: Democrats pulled out a key clean energy manufacturing provision pushed by centrist Sen. Joe Manchin from the final bipartisan infrastructure bill.

The $8 billion expansion of the 48C tax credit was included in a summary of the legislation that circulated last week, and also was a part of Manchin’s clean energy infrastructure bill that he marshalled through the Energy Committee he chairs.

But it is conspicuously absent from the actual bill released Sunday night.

Manchin’s proposal -- which he released as legislation with Sen. Debbie Stabenow of Michigan -- would build on the 48C tax credit by providing subsidies for companies to build or retrofit manufacturing and industrial facilities to make clean energy technologies.

Half the $8 billion of funding would be targeted for use in places where coal mines have closed or coal plants have retired, a priority for Manchin, who represents West Virginia, a big coal- and natural gas-producing state.

Lobbyists following the negotiations told me Democrats agreed to remove the provision after lead negotiator Rob Portman of Ohio, a Republican, insisted it be stripped of Davis-Bacon labor requirements for employers to pay prevailing wages.

Democrats could inadvertently benefit: Democrats are holding out to include the manufacturing subsidies as part of their forthcoming reconciliation package that can be passed without Republicans -- assuming all Democrats stick together in the 50-50 split Senate.

Preserving the measure for that effort could be a more natural fit, analysts and lobbyists told me, since it is expected to include other provisions to spur domestic manufacturing of clean energy technologies like electric car batteries and solar panels.

Holding out also allows Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer to use the 48C expansion as a sweetener to entice Manchin, who has expressed skepticism about spending $3.5 trillion on the reconciliation package, as party leaders are aiming for.

Manchin has pitched the measure as crucial to meet the challenge of matching lost fossil fuel jobs with new ones created in clean energy, a case useful to him as he looks to build support for massive infrastructure spending to his conservative constituents.

“It doesn't hurt Schumer’s case to have a little coal-fired ammunition in reserve for Manchin,” Kevin Book, managing director of ClearView Energy Partners, told me. “The idea of advanced manufacturing is pretty central to what Democrats are after in the party-line bill. They are not just interested in deploying solar capacity but also making it. If there is a place it belongs, it would be part of an effort to transform the American industrial base.”