Democratic US Senator Joe Manchin is one of the two holdouts in the party’s razor-thin majority in the Senate. A new report found that Manchin and his wife directed millions in federal funds to an area in West Virginia where he owns a condo.
A report by The Intercept revealed that the West Virginia Senator used his position in the Senate Appropriations Committee to secure $7 million in federal funds to rebuild the Canaan Valley National Wildlife Refuge visitor center. Manchin and his wife, Gayle Manchin own a condo in Canaan Valley, less than a mile away from the refuge.
Gayle Manchin, who was appointed by President Joe Biden to lead the Appalachian Regional Commission in 2021, recently obtained $25,000 in federal funding for water source analysis in the valley as well as $1.2 million POWER grant to connect and improve trails in the area.
According to the report, Ms. Manchin “directed millions of dollars in federal grants to projects tied to her personal investments” and that the West Virginia lawmaker backed what was described as “some of the most environmentally catastrophic fossil fuel extraction projects in the country.”
Manchin also attacked the federal government’s ability to pursue environmental regulation as the chair of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
Even as Manchin used the $7 million in federal funds to preserve the refuge, the West Virginia lawmaker has posed a challenge in the passage of federal climate legislation. Manchin has also refused to support the Democrat-led social infrastructure bill that would have provisions for climate and the environment, putting the bill at a dead end.
Because of this, Manchin has come under fire from the public as well as his Democratic colleagues in Congress. Vermont Progressive Senator Bernie Sanders recently blasted Manchin for trying to sabotage Biden’s and the Democratic caucus’s agenda by voting against highly popular legislation.
“He didn’t abruptly do anything – he sabotaged the president’s agenda,” Sanders told host Martha Raddatz in an appearance on ABC’s “This Week.”
“If you check the record, six months ago, I made it clear that you have people like Manchin, Sinema to a lesser degree, who are intentionally sabotaging the president’s agenda, what the American people want, what a majority of us in the Democratic caucus want,” said the Vermont lawmaker, also referring to Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema, who is also a holdout in the party’s majority.