Climate Wire – Climate advocates in Appalachia are urging Sen. Joe Manchin (D) to drop his opposition to the Biden administration’s $3.5 trillion “human infrastructure” package. Read the full article.
They say the measure, along with the $1.2 trillion investment package awaiting action in the House of Representatives, would provide billions of dollars to one of the nation’s poorest regions, including his home state of West Virginia.
Kelly Allen, executive director of the West Virginia Center on Budget & Policy, said in an interview that she and other policy experts and officials from the Appalachian region asked Manchin during a visit to Washington this week to weigh the “net cost of the plan instead of the overall cost,” which Manchin has argued is too high.
“We really stressed to him that there is urgency here,” Allen said. “A lot of pre-pandemic issues existed in West Virginia around workforce, health care and economic development. Those problems will still be here in 50 years if we don’t make these kinds of investments now.”
