Patrick Hayes, who served as Senator Joe Manchin’s chief of staff from 2015 to 2019, is now serving as partner to a D.C. lobbying firm pushing clean energy by transitioning away from coal. Kountoupes Denham Carr & Reid (KDCR) has received more than $300,000 for lobbying activities by a coal transition group named Just Transition Fund (JTF). Coal accounts for most of West Virginia’s energy use and the industry contributed $14 billion to the state’s economy in 2019.
Just Transition Fund’s website states that they are “the only national fund solely focused on coal community transition,” and they work to “leverage public and private resources, and guide policy change to accelerate a just economic transition.”
According to Fox:
Additionally, JTF – which is active in West Virginia, the second-largest coal producer in the nation, according to the Energy Information Administration – promotes on its website the “transition away from coal.”
Hayes first registered as a lobbyist for JTF in June 2021, lobbying disclosure records show. Since the third quarter of 2022, records indicate that Hayes has served as the sole lobbyist from KDCR representing JTF.
Since taking on the role at the firm, Hayes, according to a September 2021 report from the Washington Post, has “gone on to lobby Manchin’s office.” Hayes, according to the second quarter lobbying disclosure filed by the firm, lobbied on issues “related to economic development, workforce training, and healthcare for coal workers and their communities.”
The same issues, according to KDCR’s disclosures from the fourth quarter of 2021 to the fourth quarter of 2022, have been lobbied by Hayes. The 2021 third quarter form reveals Hayes lobbied the U.S. Senate and the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) on those issues. President Biden appointed Manchin’s wife, Gayle Manchin, to serve as federal co-chair of the federal government agency months prior and was sworn into the role in May 2021.
Senator Manchin often takes issue with President Biden’s actions related to clean energy as he realizes the negative effect it has on the people of his state. Earlier this month, he even called out Democrats who wanted to switch away from natural gas and oil, saying, “This is bull—-. So, they’re going to basically starve us out of energy that we have a tremendous, abundant supply of because of their aspirational thoughts?”
“I will continue to fight, and I’ll do everything I can to make sure the public knows what they’re doing and what it will do to you and your economy and your lifestyle,” Manchin added.
good
hello
good
No coal and stop gas production in the good ol USA. The rest of the world will continue to produce coal and gas at our loss. The producers are laughing at our ignorance. Laughing all the way to the bank.
Oh,, what a swell idea – WVs main ‘crop’ is coal – take that away, and I suspect there will be a LOT of starving people and a bankrupt state. Now ain’t that jes peachy?????