MORGANTOWN — Sen. Joe Manchin talked health care, courts, energy and more with the Morgantown Area Chamber of Commerce Monday morning. Pervading much of his talk was the dysfunctional partisanship paralyzing Washington and spilling into the rest of the country.
The constant D.C. theme, he said, is, “’What tribe do you belong to?’ I want you to know that I still belong to the American tribe.”
A striking example of the daily toxicity, he said, was the funeral of Sen. John McCain, to which McCain’s political rival President Trump wasn’t invited. “How did we get to this? What happened to civility and decorum?”
Manchin touted his own across-the-aisle centrism, which he practiced in state government and took to D.C. “We’re in a troubled world and a divided country,” he said. “What you see going on is not normal. Sooner or later we’ve got to get back together as a country.”
The impeachment of the state Supreme Court justices is a topic of conversation in D.C., he said. People ask, “What’s going on?’ … Some people have been brazen enough to say, ‘It looks like a banana republic’ to me.”
He explains to them, he said, that the court lost the confidence of the Legislature, which represents the people.
If he was asked for his 2 cents of advice for Gov. Jim Justice, he said, he would draw on what he learned as governor rebuilding the reputation of the WVU Board of Governors following the bogus degree scandal involving his daughter, Heather Bresch.
“We’re in a situation now where the governor has to put politics aside,” Manchin said. “You cannot get involved. … He has to rise above it.”
Manchin voiced his support for the proposed Appalachian Storage Hub, which would serve two important purposes: enhancing national security by backing up the hurricane-vulnerable Texas energy and petrochemical industries, and promoting the local economy by keeping the natural gas here to revitalize the petrochemical industry.
Manchin also supports methane’s frenemy fuel, coal. While gas is used as a baseline fuel, he said, it’s interruptible. Coal and nuclear are the two reliable baseline fuels. His new Energy Reliability Act would help sustain the coal-fired power plant industry by offering tax credits.
While some accuse him of trying to prop up an ailing industry with that bill, he said, he invokes the Truman-era Defense Production Act and says keeping coal plants burning serves national security.
One of the state’s greatest challenges, he said, is lack of high-speed broadband access. Congress has devoted $4.5 billion to rural broadband expansion but an obstacle for West Virginia is inaccurate Federal Communications Commission broadband maps that show coverage where there is none.
He’s brought that to the attention of the FCC, he said, and he urged chamber members to contact his office with access-problem reports that he can pass to the FCC.
The nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court is the subject of partisan debate. He said he recalls his days as governor when what mattered was judicial temperament, not political predisposition.
Even 10 years ago, he said, conservative Justice Scalia and liberal Justice Ginsberg met U.S. Senate approval nearly unanimously. Now senators want to know in advance how a justice will vote on pet topics.
He said Kavanaugh’s accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, has a right to be heard, and Kavanaugh has a right to defend himself.
He also bemoans the partisanship blocking repair of the Affordable Care Act, he said. The ACA is under court scrutiny in Texas, where the question is if the ACA is still constitutional with the individual mandate stripped out. The funding from the mandate helped stabilize the coverage costs for the 10 percent of the population who use half the healthcare dollars.
After the mandate was stricken, he said, 12 senators from each party sat down and crafted a bill based on Alaska’s reinsurance model. It creates a separate high risk pool using state match of federal Medicaid dollars.
“It’s been sitting on Mitch McConnell’s desk for nine months and he won’t let us vote on it. He won’t bring it to the floor. It’s ridiculous.” The Democrats, he added, have been just as bad. Solving the problem would take away the opportunity for both sides to assign blame.
During a Q&A session, Manchin addressed the opioid crisis. He reintroduced, he said, his LifeBOAT Act that would levy a 1 cent per milligram fee on the manufacture of opioids to fund substance abuse treatment.
He mentioned the problem ex-addicts have getting jobs. His Clean Start Act would put $2 billion toward helping them. Following a year of treatment and a year of helping others by serving as a mentor, a cleaned-up addict would be eligible to seek criminal record expungement.
Chamber member Jason Donahue, with FEOH Realty, mentioned that employers take some risk in hiring former addicts and suggest Manchin also consider offering employers incentives via tax breaks. Manchin said he’d look into it.
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