West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey told Newsmax's "National Report" on Thursday that he does not support the Inflation Reduction Act put forth by Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.
Morrisey, when asked if he supports the legislation, which is a more limited version of the "Build Back Better Act," said, "No, I don't."
He added: "I think that if you were to draft a bill that would hurt West Virginia really, really hard, and you would think of all the bad things you could do to our state, to coal mining and to the price of energy in our state and our ability to be competitive, this is the bill you do."
The Republican added: "This so disproportionately hurts West Virginia, not only directly in terms of coal and the impact on the taxes that are on the coal industry, which will hurt our state tremendously. It also is going to lead to dramatically spiked power bills."
Morrisey said,:"One of the things that I've been working on for many years is to try to ensure that if there's a transition that moves away from coal and moves toward renewables that you have to be sensitive to the timeline.
"This bill does the opposite; it doubles down on the Green New Deal and what [President Joe] Biden's been trying to do that 40% reduction of carbon emissions by 2030.
"But it's going to force the shock to the system because all of that movement in a state like West Virginia, which has 85% to 86% coal, it's going to be paid by consumers through their power bills. That's utterly unacceptable."
He continued, "This bill puts West Virginia in the crosshairs. It's reprehensible, and I urge the Schumer/Manchin bill to be pulled because it's terrible for our state [and] bad for our country, but it really has a uniquely negative impact on West Virginia."
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Theodore Bunker ✉
Theodore Bunker, a Newsmax writer, has more than a decade covering news, media, and politics.
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