West Virginia protest calls out Joe Manchins dirty coal profits
b'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 \\u201cgob.\\u201d Gob is short for \\u201cgarbage of bituminous,\\u201d which Sen. Manchin sells to the power plant for a tidy profit via Enersystems, the company he founded and that his son now runs.\\n\\nThe 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. \\u201cWhen I worked on strip mines, we threw that [gob] away,\\u201d Whitten told DeSmogBlog. \\u201cWe covered it up, it\\u2019s like if you had a wood-burning stove at your home and you wanted to put wet wood in it \\u2014 it\\u2019s just not economical.\\u201d\\n\\nHe\\u2019s 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 \\u2014 even though regulators initially fought the plant\\u2019s transition to burning gob \\u2014 was pushed through thanks to Sen. Manchin.\\n\\nManchin, 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\\u2019s signature climate and social policy legislation, by dropping his (some might argue never serious) support of it.\\n\\nFull report by Zach D. Roberts: https://www.gregpalast.com/west-virginia-protest-calls-out-manchins-coal-profits/\\n\\n#JoeManchin #GrantTown #WestVirginia #WVRising #CoalBaronBlockade #StopGOB #WestVirginiaRising #Pollution #Environment'