“It was on every level,” said National Wildlife Federation CEO Collin O’Mara, who according to other participants, he played a central role in organizing the campaign to persuade Manchin to resume the talks. “He heard from a wide range.”
Those involved who spoke with POLITICO described an effort with multiple entry points. They said Manchin staff were eager to hold meetings and continue conversations to ease their boss’ concerns about inflation, supply chains and energy.
“I am absolutely aware that many, many people called Manchin, and many business leaders wanted this done,” said an environmental group leader involved in outreach, requesting anonymity to discuss sensitive dynamics being given that the legislation has not yet been adopted.
Manchin told reporters on a Thursday call that he “never left” the July 14 talks, the day news broke that he would not support climate action. He said he and the Senate Majority Leader chuck schumer soon after, we were “trying to see if there was a different approach we could take. And we did.
On Capitol Hill, Democratic Sens. John Hickenlooper from colorado, Chris Coon of Delaware and Tina Smith of Minnesota continued to engage with Manchin and his staff behind the scenes, even as more vocal supporters of climate action in the Senate urged the caucus and President Joe Biden to move forward with the bill. narrower focus on health care subsidies and lower prescription drug costs.
Hickenlooper likened the persuasion campaign to anticipating a holiday gift.
“You hope and you hope and you hope and yet in the back of your mind, you know, ‘I’m probably not going to get it.’ I mean, it’s just too much,” he said. “And then you get it.”
Power generation companies that have had several meetings with Manchin over the past 18 months have also pushed for a deal, with Duke Energy and Constellation Energy making the case for the clean energy package in the days after Manchin appeared s move away from energy and climate measures. .
A senior clean energy company executive said his company had contacted Manchin, Schumer and the Senate finance chairman Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) over the past two weeks “gently reminding them” that “tens of billions of dollars in investment are at stake here.”
“We never considered this dead,” the executive said. “We always had hope. One thing about Manchin is that if you watch what he says, he tells you exactly what he thinks. It shaped our attitude towards the sequel. Our approach was to “do everything in our power to ensure they receive as much encouragement as possible”.
Off the Hill, O’Mara was busy the intervening days rallying conservative economists to address Manchin’s concerns that the spending program would further stoke inflation.
In the end, Summers, the former Treasury Secretary under President Bill Clinton, argued that the climate package would not fuel inflation as Manchin had feared. Economists from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and deficit reduction advocate Maya MacGuineas, chair of the nonpartisan think tank Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, Manchin also informed during this period, according to people familiar with the meetings. MacGuineas neither confirmed nor denied the meeting.
“But I will say this is a huge reversal of a bill that was originally a reckless fiscal budget and now would fight inflation, help avoid or minimize a recession and achieve a number of political goals,” she said in an email. at POLITICO. “I can’t think of the last time we saw a turnaround like this in policymaking.”
Jason Walsh, Executive Director of BlueGreen Alliance, a coalition of labor and environmental groups, said several West Virginia companies have also pushed Manchin to back the credits — even suggesting that the bill’s failure to pass puts their plans to invest in new areas in jeopardy. new operations.
“There were people that I can’t speak to who are directly involved in the potential development of clean energy manufacturing in the state of West Virginia where site visits had taken place where whatever they needed was a set of investments,” Walsh said. “And this communication also happened.”
A senior utility executive operating in Appalachia said his company has contacted Manchin about how aspects of the bill such as tax credits for building clean energy manufacturing plants will affect former coal sites and incentives for the development of small nuclear and hydrogen reactors would help West Virginia’s economy.
“We know that coal plants will eventually shut down,” the executive said. “What will replace them? What are the trades? What are we moving towards? In this case, we’re going to explore hydrogen, new nuclear, and get in-state manufacturing.
Nucor Corp., the largest U.S. steelmaker, which is building a new plant in West Virginia, also reached out to Manchin staff — as did the Carbon Capture Coalition, a cross-industry group that includes unions, oil companies and manufacturers, according to someone familiar with the contacts.
Nucor did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Form Energy, a battery storage startup backed by Gates’ Breakthrough Energy Ventures and which has plans for a manufacturing hub in West Virginia, guided Manchin staff through its growth trajectories with and without the proposed sequel to legislative incentives, said a person directly familiar with the interaction. .
This person said Form Energy officials showed the differences on a graph. His investors — including Gates — have also called for Manchin’s concerns about paying out corporate tax credits to be assuaged. through a direct compensation system rather than using tax fairness markets. Manchin had balked at direct payments but eventually accepted them in a limited form in the bill.
“It wasn’t some kind of quid pro quo,” the person said, adding that Manchin’s staff wanted to “answer nagging questions for him to answer yes”.
Gates, through Breakthrough Energy Ventures, did not respond to a request for comment.
And the unions also put pressure on Manchin. The United Mine Workers of America engaged throughout the 13-day period with Manchin’s staff, albeit largely on another issue that Manchin and the union had fought for years to achieve: a tax coal companies to contribute to a trust fund for miners suffering from black lung disease.
UMWA spokesman Phil Smith said Manchin staff “are in total agreement.” Still, it was still a surprise to see this tax fully and permanently reinstated in the bill because “no one told me or anyone else that, yeah, that’s going to be in there,” a- he declared.
Local advocates of West Virginia’s push for new forms of energy also made a belated push.
Brandon Dennison, CEO of economic development organization Coalfield Development, pointed to companies like West Virginia-based Solar Holler solar installer whose employees are members of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers union.
Solar Holler CEO Dan Conant told POLITICO he spoke with Manchin often, explaining that his company would benefit from the direct clean energy incentives because, as a nonprofit, it doesn’t. has no tax obligation to obtain funding through tax equity markets. Conant spoke with Manchin staff after the text of the bill was released late Wednesday and was pleased that some of these provisions were included.
Dennison said that when he spoke to Manchin staff over the past two weeks, he made it clear that adopting clean energy incentives was about giving West Virginia “a chance to remain a energetic state.
“If we’re going to benefit from the investments and jobs that will come with this transition, we need to be part of the proactive solutions and policies rather than constantly playing defense,” Dennison said. “That’s the case I tried to make.”
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