By Mike Tony, Charleston Gazette-Mail
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., has made $4.35 million since 2012 from stock he owns in a Fairmont coal brokerage he founded in 1988, profiting while protecting the coal industry as chair of the powerful Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
Environmental and progressive activists say that’s a conflict of interest that comes at an unacceptable cost to the world.
“The person that’s making climate legislation probably shouldn’t make $500,000 a year off of a really dirty coal-fired power plant,” said Holly Bradley, a 33-year-old Pocahontas County mother of two.
So Bradley and other activists are preparing to turn to civil disobedience to protest Manchin’s blocking clean energy legislation that advocates say is critical to staving off the worst effects of climate change while maintaining coal industry ties…
