Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) seems to be on a tear of late when it comes to Joe Biden. He’s made it very clear that he’s not been happy when he’s blocked Biden nominees. Now he’s threatening to sue the Biden Treasury Department if they don’t implement the revised electric vehicle tax credit as he believes they agreed to do.
Treasury’s guidance, which will articulate what manufacturers must do to comply with rules relating to battery components and critical minerals in the Inflation Reduction Act, has been delayed several months as the administration irons out the requirements. The delay has angered Manchin, chief author of the law, as have indications that the administration may implement the requirements more loosely than he intended.
Manchin said Wednesday he would sue over the guidance if things don’t reflect his intentions with the law.
“I think they’re going to try to screw me on this, and I’m willing to go to court,” Manchin said during comments at the SAFE Summit, an industry conference focused on electrification. “I’m willing to stop it all.”
Sounds like Manchin has finally realized that Biden has just been trying to screw him over all this time to get what had been his important vote to slip their disgraceful spending bill through.
Guess where the problem comes in? Manchin had built some provisions into the Inflation Reduction Act [translation: Climate Change Political Agenda Act] that would reduce the dependency on China for critical minerals and make the clean vehicle supply chains more focused on being made and assembled here. The critical minerals portion required that they get them from the U.S. or a U.S. free trade agreement country.
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“I don’t have a problem opening up to our reliable trading partners,” Manchin said. “France, the UK, the EU—I’m fine with processing in those areas. I’m just not fine with [those countries] completing the project and all we’re going to do is end up assembling in the US. That is not the bill, that’s not how we wrote it, and it’s not how it should be implemented,” he said.
So now the Treasury is claiming they’re getting backlash from overseas and they want to expand what a “free trade agreement country” can include. You know if they go down this road, Biden is going to be putting China right back in there and Manchin will be ridden over again. He seems to understand that now as well, and he’s not letting that go by.
It looks a lot like Manchin may be posturing for a run for 2024. He hasn’t answered that question when asked, but it sounds a lot like it. He’s already refused to say that he would endorse Joe Biden, indicating he needed to see who would be running and not ruling out a run himself. He’s also been distancing himself from Biden, blocking Biden nominees including tanking Gigi Sohn’s nomination for the Federal Communications Commission and blocking Interior Department nominee Laura Daniel-Davis.
If he runs, he could certainly split some people away from Joe Biden who even the majority of New York Democrats don’t want as their nominee.
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