Joe Mancin has taken the so-called “soft infrastructure” bill hostage. His refusal to accept the limits on coal emissions entailed in the pending bill is no less than hostage-taking of the global warming provisions of the soft infrastructure bill.

West Virginia,

Mountain Momma

We know the most significant source of carbon emissions in the U.S.A. are automobiles and  the coal mines of West Virginia and Kentucky, and we also know those states do not have the best interests of their neighbors at heart.,

We also know the auto industry is all-in on the emissions prevention that the new climate restrictions would entail. So we turn to the coal mines.

You can’t expect senators like Joe Mancin and Mitch McConnell  to vote against the jobs of their constituents, but you could ask the senators of their neighboring states to vote for the healthy lungs of their citizens. Those states, including Ohio, Indiana, Tennessee, Pennsylvania and Virginia, have stood against carbon emissions in the past to prevent carbon dioxide clouds from  blowing over their states. They [Bill Haggerty and Marsha Blackburn (TN), Mike Braun and Todd Young (IN), Tim Kaine and Mark Warner (VA), Patrick Toomey (PA) and Rob Portman (OH)] knew that lung diseases were increasing and worsening in their states because of the direct effects of the smoke from the coal mines.

Now the wider effects of global warming are a known threat, not just to neighbors of the coal states, but to the world climate that brings flooding, fires,  and unseasonal weather to these states.  Some of the states are politically Red, some Blue, some Purple. The midwestern senators should stand together to put pressure on Joe Mancin to bite the bullet and prevent climate change.

Take me home,

Country road.

Climate does not discriminate with the political preferences of our states. The worst tornadoes and flooding attack Republican states to the south and the worst hurricanes attack Louisiana and Texas. These are the vicious consequences of climate change, whether Congress-persons choose to acknowledge them or not. They will continue to attack the citizens of these states primarily and with increasing fury.

The effects of global warming are more subtle for the citizens of West Virginia’s border states, but they are equally deadly. It is time for senators of every political hue to protect their own citizens from the consequences of burning coal. Coal emissions do not only float over West Virginia. Air pollution drifts over every state in the country, but most immediately over the midwestern border states of West Virginia.  If the Republican Congressional representatives of these states united to put the squeeze on Joe Mancin, they could not only protect their own citizens air pollution, but the rest of the world from global warming.

It involves bi-partisan action to protect the non-partisan victims of climate change–everyone.  Joe Mancin needs to know he is alone in the protection of the coal industry. Maybe he has a flimsy alliance with Mitch McConnell  (KY) and Roger Marshall (KY).  But he should expect opposition from most of his border cousins.

There is a road to reducing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and it leads through West Virginia, Mountain Momma.

Take me home, country road.