'Revisit his opposition': Country's largest coal miners union urges Manchin to support Biden's Build Back Better agenda

The largest coal miners union in the United States is pushing back against Sen. Joe Manchin’s (D-W.Va.) adamant opposition toward President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better agenda urging him to support it.

According to HuffPost, the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) is hoping that Manchin will “revisit his opposition” to the monumental proposed piece of legislation as they believe it could prove to be beneficial to coal miners.

On Monday, December 20, UMWA President Cecil Roberts released a statement highlighting the benefits of the bill.

“The bill includes language that would extend the current fee paid by coal companies to fund benefits received by victims of coal workers’ pneumoconiosis, or Black Lung,” Roberts said in a statement on Monday. “But now that fee will be cut in half, further shifting the burden of paying these benefits away from the coal companies and on to taxpayers.”

He also noted that the $2 trillion package would also “provide tax incentives to encourage manufacturers to build facilities in the coalfields that would employ thousands of coal miners who have lost their jobs.”

Roberts added, “But now there is no path forward for millions of workers to exercise their rights at work.”

In addition to expressing support for the bill, Roberts is also urging lawmakers to pass the bill as soon as possible.

“I also want to reiterate our support for the passage of voting rights legislation as soon as possible, and strongly encourage Senator Manchin and every other Senator to be prepared to do whatever it takes to accomplish that,” Roberts said. “Anti-democracy legislators and their allies are working every day to roll back the right to vote in America. Failure by the Senate to stand up to that is unacceptable and a dereliction of their duty to the Constitution.”

The latest comes after Manchin's repeated attempts to block the president's agenda. In fact, on Sunday, December 19, Manchin appeared on Fox News to double down on his stance.