Manchin: Dems Could Have Worked Harder to Pass Permitting Reform I Was Promised, ‘I Wasn’t Misled’ Though

During an interview aired on Thursday’s broadcast of CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) stated that while he doesn’t think he was misled on the permitting reform he was promised in exchange by his fellow Democrats for supporting the Inflation Reduction Act, but he’s “discouraged that they didn’t work harder to get it done.”

Co-host Joe Kernen asked, “Was the permitting aspect of it necessary to offset all the renewable stuff in there? You didn’t get that. It’s almost like the –.”

Manchin cut in to respond, “The renewable stuff — what we did Joe, if you look at the renewable stuff that we’re doing, we have, I think, a responsibility to decarbonize. But not to the point and accelerated to where we have nothing left and we can’t run the country.”

Kernen then asked, “Were you misled about the permitting, did you feel like?”

Manchin answered, “I wasn’t misled. I’m discouraged that they didn’t work harder to get it done. But I got 40 votes. What I was discouraged is that my Republican colleagues only gave me seven votes when it’s something that — all of them had signed on to a bill that wasn’t that much different. I said, if this is what we want — and they’re afraid of giving me a political win thinking it’s going to help me politically, and I’m just — I don’t think that way.”

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett