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| Photo Credit: AP. |
Sen. Joe Manchin, a Democrat lashed out at President Joe Biden Saturday over the president’s coal related comments made in West Virginia during a campaign tour saying Mr. Biden is “divorced from reality”. The president vowed to shut down coal-fired power stations and replace with wind and solar energy as part of his clean energy initiative.
Sen. Manchin
accused the president of ignoring “the severe economic pain” for people from
higher energy prices and said this was the main reason Americans are
increasingly losing trust in the president.
Manchin’s comment
is coming few days before Americans go to the poll in Tuesday’s midterm.
The Republicans
are hoping to seize control of the House and provide strategic oversight to Mr.
Biden’s many failings including his chaotic open border policy that has brought
in millions of illegal immigrants into the United States as well as COVID-19
spending and other programs that has severely contributed to the nation’s debt
ceiling.
Mr. Biden is
facing a herculean as the nation’s inflation rate takes away money from the
pockets of Americans as well as renewed fears of possible recession as the nation
grapples with rates hikes by the Federal Reserve in a bid to stem rising
inflation.
Manchin said
Mr. Biden should make a public apology over his comments, saying the president
did not take into account the number of Americans that would lose their jobs
due to the closure of such facilities.
On Friday,
at a speech in Carlsbad, California, Mr. Biden touted his $280 billion plan to
boost the semiconductor industry and scientific research and made reference to the
coal industry.
“I was in
Massachusetts about a month ago on the site of the largest old coal plant in
America. Guess what? It cost them too much money,” Biden said, according to The
Associated Press. “No one is building new coal plants because they can’t rely
on it, even if they have all the coal guaranteed for the rest of their
existence of the plant. So it’s going to become a wind generation,” Biden noted.
“We’re going to be shutting these plants down all across America and having
wind and solar.”
In August
Biden passed a weeping climate-and-health law with the support of Manchin.
His comments
infuriated Manchin, the chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources
Committee. In a statement, Manchin said Biden’s comments were “not only
outrageous and divorced from reality, they ignore the severe economic pain the
American people are feeling because of rising energy costs.”
He noted
that the president’s positions on certain topics appear to change with this
audience.
Manchin demanded
an “immediate and public apology” for the many Virginia coal workers who
continue to put their lives on the line to provide electricity for Americans.
“Let me be
clear, this is something the president has never said to me. Being cavalier
about the coal jobs for men and women in West Virginia and across the country
who literally put their lives on the line to help build and power this country
is offensive and disgusting,” Manchin. He added that “it is time he learn a
lesson that his words matter and have consequences.”
The White
House said in a statement by press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre that the
president’s words have been twisted to achieve the opposite of what he meant
noting that the president “regrets it if anyone hearing these remarks took
offense.”
Manchin was
instrumental to the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act which provided
funding for the president’s climate change program.
“The
President was commenting on a fact of economics and technology: as it has been from its earliest days as an
energy superpower, America is once again in the midst of an energy transition,”
said Jean-Pierre.
“Our goal as
a nation is to combat climate change and increase our energy security by
producing clean and efficient American energy.
Under President Biden, oil and natural gas production has increased, and
we are on track to hit the highest production in our country’s history next
year,” she noted.
“He is
determined to make sure that this transition helps all Americans in all parts
of the country, with more jobs and better opportunities; it’s a commitment he
has advanced since Day One. No one will
be left behind,” the White House said.