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NOVEMBER 18, 2021

Meyerson on TAP

Electric Cars and Union Workers

The Build Back Better bill's support for both exemplifies the just
transition we need to save the planet. And-surprise-Joe Manchin
doesn't like it.

What with the price of gas soaring, you'd think the prospect of
electric cars would turn Americans' hearts aflutter. And however
aflutter they may be just now, they'd be aflutterer still if the
number of charging stations was greatly increased (the EU, which is
spatially smaller than the U.S., has five times as many chargers) and
the price of those newfangled electrics brought down.

The infrastructure bill that President Biden signed into law on Monday
included $7.5 billion to increase the number of charging stations, while
the Build Back Better bill, which, knock wood, may actually pass the
House within the next day or two, provides a tax write-off of $12,500 to
Americans who buy electric cars that are built in the U.S. by union
labor. Absent the union labor, the subsidy is reduced to $8,000.

Not surprisingly, the car manufacturers who've successfully opposed
any attempts by their workers to unionize-Tesla, Toyota, and other
foreign-based manufacturers who've set up shop in the South because of
its historic preference for unpaid and underpaid labor-oppose the
unionization requirement for the full 12.5. And also not surprisingly,
since nothing he does can by now surprise even the semi-sentient, so
does Joe Manchin.

Manchin, of course, is Fossil Fuel's Friend. (If he'd been around
when Thomas Edison was first trying to break into the illumination
market, we'd still be relying on gas lamps for light.) At Manchin's
insistence, House Democrats reduced the yearly income ceiling for
eligibility for the electric-car subsidy from $400,000 to $250,000. But
when the BBB bill arrives in the Senate, presumably next week, Manchin
also wants to eliminate that unionized-worker requirement for receiving
the full subsidy.

Looked at one way, this is a little odd even for Manchin, as he has
endorsed the PRO Act, which would remove most of the hurdles workers
encounter when they try to form or join a union. Indeed, he endorsed the
PRO Act while sitting next to Cecil Roberts, president of the legendary
United Mine Workers, a union now less than one-tenth the size it once
boasted, but whose name still resonates in West Virginia. Looked at
another way, the one major auto plant in West Virginia is Toyota's,
which, presumably, is why Manchin has termed the union provision "not
American."

Actually, Biden's insistence on both going electric and going union is
absolutely necessary if we're to keep the planet from incinerating,
which is politically possible only if we ensure a just transition for
workers who now mine coal and build gas-powered cars. Instead, Manchin
has spent his political capital, which will never be remotely as high as
it is in the current session of Congress, on extending the dwindling
life of the coal industry, rather than winning the kind of income
guarantees that the government could devote to miners after the coal is
kept in the ground. Rather than help craft a livable future, Manchin is
determined to extend a doomed present. His condition-call it temporal
myopia-is a threat to us all.

~ HAROLD MEYERSON

Follow Harold Meyerson on Twitter

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Burying the Evidence

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Equipped with alarming new reports and data on the accelerating climate
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At U.N. Climate Talks, What Mattered Most Went Unsaid

A Wall Street-led energy transition; punitive credit conditions for
developing countries; sustained oil and gas drilling BY LEE HARRIS

How Biden Can Protect Students From Predatory For-Profit Colleges

Yet the Departments of Education and Justice are contradicting
themselves. BY HANNAH STORY BROWN

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