MORGANTOWN – Sen. Joe Manchin spoke with members of the West Virginia press on Wednesday, covering a wide variety of topics.
Among them was the omnibus funding bill expected to pass the Senate Wednesday evening, and he focused on some of the earmarks for West Virginia included in the bill, a total of about $228 million.
The Morgantown area is slated to see nearly $30 million from the bill: $25.59 million “for WVU Hospitals to re-use the former Viatris facility (now WVU Innovation Corp.), expand the Children’s Hospital, and construct a new research facility for Rockefeller Neurosciences Institute”; and $6 million for a new fire station in Morgantown.
Manchin defended the reappearance of earmarks (now called Congressionally Directed Spending Requests), saying they are intended for something of high value aimed at taking care of a constituent issue. “It’s all value projects.”
The Dominion Post reported in detail on Wednesday on the elements of the Electoral Count Reform and Presidential Transition Improvement Act of 2022, and Manchin reviewed a few of those points, noting it’s intended to prevent the nonoccurence of a Jan. 6-type insurrection and dispel the belief a vice president can overturn the results of the Electoral College vote.
It also raises the Congressional objection threshold. Currently, only one member of both chambers can object to a slate of electors. The act raises it to one-fifth of the members of each body – 86 representatives, 20 senators. Manchin said, “You can’t just have one rogue senator or one rogue congressperson challenging the certification of an election.”
Manchin and Sen. Shelley Moore Capito both celebrated the Supreme Court’s stay on the expiration of the Title 42 immigration policy, but Manchin noted on Wednesday that that’s not enough.
“We need more of a permanent fix,” he said. “I’m working feverishly on it to get it done.” He also believes the Biden administration will make some other recommendations to stop the free flow of people pouring across the border allegedly seeking asylum. Whatever fix that comes will need to make sure asylum seekers come through a port of entry and get properly vetted for asylum.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was visiting D.C. Wednesday evening. Manchin and Capito both support ongoing aid for Ukrainian resistance to the Russian invasion and Manchin commented, “I believe we must do everything we can tr make sure that Vladimir Putin does not win in Ukraine and Ukraine does not fall to Russia.”
Manchin and Capito also both support permitting reform legislation and Manchin answered some questions abut his bill again failing and why it’s needed. “If it s not done, then the billions of dollars were trying to invest will be stranded.”
The bill would benefit infrastructure projects across the whole nation that are boondoggled by 10-years permitting delays, he said, and here could help bring in a hydrogen hub and complete pipeline construction to get ur natural gas to markets that need it.
He sent out fact sheet on the Mountain Valley Pipeline, showing it’s 94% complete, with 283 of 303 miles done. After receiving permits it could be finished in four to five months. That would require another $1.2 billion investment and create 2,500 construction-related jobs.
The MVP would bring $40 million in new tax revenue for the state, he said, and more than $300 million in royalties for West Virginia residents.
Completing that project would also open the door to two ancillary projects, the MVP expansion and MVP Southgate creating another 2,000 jobs and another $1 billion in investment in West Virginia and Virginia.
MVP has been in permitting and litigation limbo for seven years, his fact sheet says. Since 2018, when the permits were originally completed, the pipeline cost has almost doubled, from $3.5 billion to $6.2 billion.
And while the federal Fourth Circuit Court’s rules require judges to be randomly assigned to permit cases, the same three judges have voided six of the seven permits issued and herd at least six separate
cases on MVP permits.
His answer on moving ahead on permitting reform: “Just keep working on it.”
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