West Virginia protest calls out Joe Manchin’s dirty coal profits

More than 50 activists convened on a power plant in West Virginia
last weekend, calling for its closure. By the end of the day, 16
people were arrested. The plant the protesters targeted in Grant
Town is one where Sen. Joe Manchin makes nearly $500,000 per year
selling a dirty coal waste called “gob.” Gob is short for “garbage
of bituminous,” which Sen. Manchin sells to the power plant for a
tidy profit via Enersystems, the company he founded and that his
son now runs. The protesters, a mix of local and national
activists, call themselves West Virginia Rising. One of them was
Michael Whitten, a retired miner from Boone County, West Virginia.
“When I worked on strip mines, we threw that [gob] away,” Whitten
told DeSmogBlog. “We covered it up, it’s like if you had a
wood-burning stove at your home and you wanted to put wet wood in
it — it’s just not economical.” He’s right. The West Virginia
customers served by the Grant Town Power Plant, run by American
Bituminous Power Partners (AMBit), are being charged more because
of the gob. In the last six years burning this waste coal has cost
the local power utility an additional $117 million. All of this —
even though regulators initially fought the plant’s transition to
burning gob — was pushed through thanks to Sen. Manchin. Manchin,
who has a blind trust set up for his investments, has continually
been a one-man blockade for climate legislation. That came to a
head this year when he essentially killed the Build Back Better
bill, Biden’s signature climate and social policy legislation, by
dropping his (some might argue never serious) support of it. Full
report by Zach D. Roberts:
https://www.gregpalast.com/west-virginia-protest-calls-out-manchins-coal-profits/
#JoeManchin #GrantTown #WestVirginia #WVRising #CoalBaronBlockade
#StopGOB #WestVirginiaRising #Pollution #Environment