Sen. Joe Manchin was a keynote speaker at an exclusive, invitation only, coal industry event in late September, Documented reports. The “Coal and Investment Leadership Forum,” occurred at an exclusive golf resort owned by Jim McGlothlin of United Coal Company. Manchin, who received nearly half a million dollars last year from the coal brokerage he founded and his son runs, has been “successful” in protecting the coal industry during recent negotiations, Joe Craft III, CEO of Alliance Resource Partners told investors on an October 25 earnings call. Craft, a billionaire Trump donor with close ties to Trump’s disgraced EPA chief Scott Pruitt, was listed as a “host” of the secretive event.

Manchin used his power in the Senate to force the removal of the Clean Energy Performance Program from the Build Back Better Act and has also demanded paid family leave be removed from the bill, among other measures that would regulate big business and the fossil fuel industry to protect public health. On Monday, Manchin said he needed “more clarity” on the bill already dramatically pared down and rewritten to comply with his demands, prompting Missouri Rep. Cori Bush to release a statement calling Manchin’s objections “anti-Black, anti-child, anti-woman, and anti-immigrant.” (Documented, Huffpost; Monday comments: Washington Post $, AP, NPR, Bloomberg $, E&E News, Reuters, Politico, New York Times $, CNBC, ABC, CBS, The Hill; Cori Bush response: Business Insider)