Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) is ratcheting up criticism of President Biden, castigating him for refusing to sit down with “fiscally minded” Republicans to negotiate over the nation’s debt limit and accusing him of allowing “unelected ideologues” in his administration to thwart the will of Congress on energy policy.
Manchin, who has not yet said whether he will run for reelection next year in a state that Biden lost to President Donald Trump by nearly 39 percentage points, laid out several of his grievances with Biden in a Wall Street Journal op-ed published Wednesday night.
“Mr. Biden was elected to lead us all to solve problems,” Manchin wrote. “We can’t allow them to be made worse by ignoring them. The president has the power, today, to direct his administration to follow the law, as well as to sit down with congressional leaders and negotiate meaningful, serious reforms to the federal budget.”
“Failing to do so may score political points with left-wing partisans, but generations of Americans will ultimately pay the price,” Manchin added.
Manchin, among the most conservative Democrats in the Senate, also threatened Wednesday to sue the Biden administration over its handling of guidance on which electric vehicles qualify for tax credits in last year’s landmark Inflation Reduction Act. In doing so, he expressed fears that the regulations could go “off the rails.”
And Manchin joined Republicans Wednesday in voting to overturn a Biden administration rule aimed at stronger protection of the nation’s waters.
In the Journal op-ed, Manchin, a champion of the coal industry, complained that “bureaucrats” are subverting energy-related provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act — sweeping climate and health-care legislation he negotiated with the White House.
“Specifically, they are ignoring the law’s intent to support and expand fossil energy and are redefining ‘domestic energy’ to increase clean-energy spending to potentially deficit-breaking levels,” he wrote. “The administration is attempting at every turn to implement the bill it wanted, not the bill Congress actually passed.”
Biden, Manchin said, needs to “rein in this extremism.”
Manchin’s criticism of Biden on fiscal matters comes as the White House and House Republicans remain in a standoff over the nation’s debt limit.
Republicans are insisting on spending reductions in exchange for their support of legislation to raise the debt ceiling — a posture they didn’t take during the Trump administration, when it was raised three times without conditions.
Biden wants a clean debt bill passed but has said he is willing to talk to House Republicans about spending priorities once they release a budget to compare with the plan the White House put forward on March 9. It is unclear when House Republicans, who hold a narrow and fragile majority in the chamber, will coalesce around such a plan.
In the op-ed, Manchin is critical of Biden’s approach.
“The first step is for the president to sit down with fiscally minded Republicans and Democrats to negotiate common-sense reforms to out-of-control fiscal policy,” Manchin wrote. “While we can all acknowledge that raising the debt limit is an absolute necessity and Republicans shouldn’t threaten otherwise, are we seriously to believe there is no room to negotiate? Does the federal government operate so efficiently and effectively that there truly isn’t a dollar of waste, fraud or abuse? Let’s get serious.”
Questioned about Manchin’s criticism, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Thursday that the administration has a “respectful, a productive relationship with Senator Joe Manchin, and we are very proud of the Inflation Reduction Act and our shared goals and values that the president signed into law.”
She added that the White House would “continue to work with the senator on those shared priorities and values, including reducing the deficit and the permitting reform, which are both both part of the president’s budget.”
Manchin has said he could wait until the end of the year to announce whether he is seeking reelection in his conservative state.
He prevailed over his Republican challenger by about three percentage points in his last election in 2018. If he moves forward in 2024, he is expected to be in a tight race. Democrat-turned-Republican Gov. Jim Justice is considering a bid for the seat.
The latest op-ed in the Journal was not the first time Manchin has butted heads with the Biden administration in the pages of a newspaper or through public statements. Early in Biden’s term, in an op-ed in the Charleston Gazette-Mail, Manchin announced he would not support federal voting rights legislation that Democrats argued was critical for preserving democracy.
In November, Manchin and Biden were again engaged in a public spat after the president said in a speech that coal plants were becoming outmoded.
“We’re going to be shutting these plants down all across America and having wind and solar,” Biden said then.
In a subsequent statement, Manchin, who represents a coal-producing state, called Biden’s comments “outrageous and divorced from reality” and demanded an apology.
“Comments like these are the reason the American people are losing trust in President Biden,” Manchin said. “Let me be clear, this is something the President has never said to me. Being cavalier about the loss of coal jobs for men and women in West Virginia and across the country who literally put their lives on the line to help build and power this country is offensive and disgusting.”
Amy B Wang contributed to this report.