Three-Time Loser: Manchin’s Dirty Zombie Deal

Above: Senate Majority Leader “Chucky” Schumer cannot catch a break in helping to get Sen. Joe Manchin’s Dirty Zombie Deal passed. The latest MadLipz video from José Bravo tells more.


On Dec. 15, 2022, U.S. Senators shot down Sen. Joe Manchin’s Dirty Permitting Deal Amendment for the third time; of the 60 votes needed to pass, the measure failed with a vote of 47-47.

The dirty “zombie” deal would have fast-tracked permit approvals for dangerous fossil fuel projects, gutted environmental protections, endangered public health, and pushed approval for Manchin’s pet project, the Mountain Valley Pipeline. Most recently, the West Virginia Senator–King Coal himself–attempted to attach this legislation to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which ended up advancing past the Senate without the dirty deal.

The Just Transition Alliance has opposed Manchin’s permitting language for the past six months. In September, our executive director José Bravo and other movement leaders were arrested while blocking the entrance to the Hart Senate Office Building in Washington D.C. This direct action against polluter subsidies and pipeline permitting provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act unified environmental justice communities in opposition to the dirty deal, which we successfully derailed. “Several days later, with criticism from both progressives and Republicans for their own reasons, Sen. Manchin publicly issued a request to Sen. Schumer to remove permitting language from the Continuing Resolution,” we reported after the Sept. 22 action in our statement on the Inflation Reduction Act.

The deal was rejected for a second time on Dec. 6, after which Manchin immediately scrambled to get it passed, again, by attaching it to the must-pass NDAA.

While the deal seems dead and warmed over, JTA will continue to watch what happens, knowing Manchin is not prepared to give up his fossil-fueled fight.