The only viable business in Grant Town is a fortresslike structure with a single smokestack on a hilltop overlooking a creek.
The coal industry and the personal finances of Joe Manchin III, the Democrat who rose through state politics to reach the United States Senate, are connected by the Grant Town power plant.
When Mr. Manchin was elected to the West Virginia Senate in 1987, he had a part-time job at the Grant Town plant that paid $6,500 a year. His family's carpet business was not doing well.
Two developers wanted to build a power plant in Grant Town, just outside Mr. Manchin's district. Mr. Manchin helped the developers clear bureaucratic hurdles after his uncle died in a mining accident.
He did something beyond routine services. The Grant Town power plant was where he started his business.
A type of coal mixed with rock and clay known as "gob" can be burned to produce electricity and is typically cast aside as junk by mining companies. He arranged to get a slice of the revenue from the electricity generated by the plant.
Mr. Manchin has become a rich man because of the deal.
While the fact that Mr. Manchin owns a coal business is well-known, an examination by The New York Times offers a more detailed portrait of the degree to which Mr. Manchin's business has been interwoven with his official actions. The only customer for his gob for the past 20 years has been the Grant Town plant, according to federal data. Mr. Manchin used his influence to benefit the plant. He pushed for a tax credit that helped the plant and worked behind the scenes to get a rate increase for West Virginians.
Major corporations with interests far beyond West Virginia have held ownership stakes in the power plant. Corporations have tried to influence the Senate at various points, including legislation that Mr. Manchin sat on.
The legislation that would have speeded the country's transition to wind, solar and other clean energy and away from coal, oil and gas was blocked by Mr. Manchin as the pivotal vote in an evenly split Senate. Mr. Manchin has joined the Republicans in calling for more American gas and oil production.
The Grant Town plant has hurt West Virginians economically, costing them hundreds of millions of dollars in excess electricity fees. Gob is a less efficient power source.
Mr. Manchin did not want to be interviewed. Sam Runyon did not respond to questions about his business interests or his actions as a public official. Senate ethics rules forbid members from acting on legislation to further their financial interests. There is no evidence that Mr. Manchin broke any laws.
According to federal data, Mr. Manchin has acted to protect industries in West Virginia, which ranked second in coal production and fifth in natural gas in 2020. He told the Charleston Gazette in 1996 that he did it to keep West Virginia people working.
This account is based on thousands of pages of documents from lawsuits, land records, state regulatory hearings, lobbying and financial disclosures, federal energy data and other records dating back more than three decades. Three dozen former business associates, current and former government officials, and industry experts were interviewed by the Times.
The documents and interviews show that the official actions of Mr. Manchin have benefited his financial interest in the Grant Town plant, which is a private business.
According to Senate financial disclosure forms, Mr. Manchin and his wife owned assets worth between $4.5 million and $12.8 million in 2020. Mr. Manchin reported dozens of assets, including bank accounts, mutual funds, real estate and ownership stakes in more than a dozen companies.
The majority of Mr. Manchin's reported income since entering the Senate has come from one company, which he founded with his brother in 1988: Enersystems, Inc.
Joseph Manchin IV is the son of Mr. Manchin. It paid Mr. Manchin almost three times his salary as a United States senator. Mr. Manchin reported over $5 million from the company.
Mr. Manchin says that Enersystems is a contract services and material provider for utility plants.
There is no website for the privately held company. Mr. Manchin's name can be found in a cluster of small rooms on the ground floor of a brick office complex. It has two employees, according to the West Virginia secretary of state.
The only person there was Mr. Manchin's son.
The data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration shows that Enersystems supplies a specific type of coal. The Grant Town power plant is the only customer that Mr. Manchin's company has had.
Grant Town was built around a large underground coal mine. The mine closed in 1985 and every other business has followed suit. The buildings have been condemned.
The community had something that was valuable to outsiders.
Gob is low-quality coal that is mixed with rock and clay, making it harder and less efficient to burn. For decades, dark gray gob was piled up on the ground outside coal mines in West Virginia, often reaching several stories high.
Congress passed a law in 1978 to encourage alternative energy sources. Grant Town was one of the gob-burning plants that opened.
American Bituminous Power Partners, or AmBit, was created by the developers of the Grant Town plant. AmBit signed a long-term contract with Monongahela Power to buy electricity from gob.
Federal agencies raised environmental concerns before AmBit could start construction. Joe Manchin helped the company.
Mr. Manchin was involved in politics as a child. His father and grandfather both served as mayors. His uncle was West Virginia's treasurer. Mr. Manchin's father was friends with Arch A. Moore Jr., a three-term West Virginia governor whose daughter is currently the state's Republican U.S. senator.
The ties helped Mr. Manchin get things done, according to Jack Spadaro, who was a supervisor for West Virginia.
Mr. Spadaro said that he could control a bloc of votes in northern West Virginia.
Mr. Manchin used that influence for AmBit.
According to documents obtained through a public records request, the Environmental Protection Agency was concerned that the Grant Town plant would be too close to an existing coal-burning plant, causing excessive levels of sulfur dioxide, a threat to human health and plant life.
The Grant Town plant was approved by Mr. Manchin, according to Mr. Farley.
The Grant Town plant was allowed to proceed after Mr. Farley struck an agreement with Mon Power to limit emissions from the nearby plant. He told the E.P.A. that he copied Mr. Manchin on the letter and issued the permit for Grant Town. The Charleston Gazette reported Mr. Manchin's intervention in 1996.
It would have bothered him if he knew that Mr. Manchin was going to have a financial relationship with the plant.
Mr. Manchin began to profit from the plant.
The old coal mine in Barrackville, five miles south of Grant Town, was bought by one of Mr. Manchin's companies, Transcon Inc., for $380,000 in 1989. He sold the property and its gob piles to AmBit for half a million dollars.
Mr. Manchin supplied fuel to the Grant Town plant. He received a share of the revenue.
He signed another deal with AmBit before the plant opened, which was an old coal mine that Mr. Manchin owned. He leased the mine and the gob to AmBit. AmBit agreed to pay rent to Mr. Manchin, but also one percent of the gross revenue from electricity generated by burning gob from Mr. Manchin's old coal mine, according to a copy of the lease at the courthouse.
The terms were generous to Mr. Manchin, according to a lawyer who teaches at West Virginia University.
The Grant Town plant opened and Mr. Manchin urged his fellow state lawmakers to back a tax credit for power plants that burn gob. It passed the next year.
Grant Town was one of three plants that burned gob. Mr. Manchin said that he had broken no rules.
His political ambitions grew as the Grant Town plant continued to buy Mr. Manchin's gob. He was the secretary of state. Four years later, Mr. Manchin entered the governor's mansion. He helped the power plant win a prize.
After the Grant Town plant began burning gob, AmBit said the operating costs were higher than expected, and the company was going to need more money for the electricity it was supplying to Mr. Manchin.
The company executives sought approval from the West Virginia Public Service Commission, but the utility, Mon Power, opposed the request.
AmBit again sought a rate increase in 2006 when Mr. Manchin was the governor. Mon Power supported its request.
The change in position was the result of Mr. Manchin's involvement.
Stanley Sears is the owner of the land on which Grant Town sits. Mr. Sears visited Mr. Manchin and his family.
Mr. Sears said that Mr. Puccio was assigned to help with a legal dispute.
Mr. Sears testified that Mon Power supported the rate increase. The Public Service Commission approved it.
The consequences of the rate increase were huge. Grant Town has cost Mon Power $117 million more than it would have spent to buy power from other sources, according to documents filed last year with the Public Service Commission. Grant Town's contract with the utility doesn't expire until 2036.
Mr. Puccio did not respond to requests for comment. Reached by phone, Mr. Sears refused to comment. Will Boye, a spokesman for Mon Power, said the utility put the request in front of regulators and other stakeholders who could evaluate whether the rate increase and preservation of Grant Town were in the best interests of customers and the state.
The extra costs were passed on to the residents of one of the most impoverished states in the nation.
After Mr. Manchin became involved in national policy, his family business began earning more money from AmBit.
In the middle of his second term as governor, Mr. Manchin won a special election to fill the US Senate seat left vacant by the death of Robert Byrd. Mr. Manchin was a member of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.
He was one of the most vocal opponents of the proposed limits on emissions of mercury and other hazardous substances from power plants. According to Lisa Evans, senior counsel at the environmental advocacy group Earthjustice, the mercury regulations were particularly threatening to plants like Grant Town because gob generated more mercury per kilowatt of electricity than traditional coal.
Mr. Manchin wanted to protect coal plants from more stringent regulation of coal ash, which gob-fired plants generate in higher volumes than conventional coal-burning facilities. The legislation he sponsored in 2016 gave regulatory authority over coal ash to the states.
Mr. Manchin was a top recipient of campaign contributions from the mining, oil and gas industries.
AmBit got 80% of its coal waste from the Manchin family business in 2020, compared to one-quarter when he first entered the Senate.
After agreeing to answer written questions for the article, Kenneth Niemann did not respond to them.
On the surface, Mr. Manchin has a business relationship with a power plant.
AmBit is the owner of the Grant Town power plant.
Records show that at various points, three major companies owned a significant share of AmBit through a series of holding companies.
The companies that paid Mr. Manchin partly owned the Grant Town plant, and their representatives Lobbyed the Senate on dozens of bills handled by the committees on which Mr. Manchin sat. Lobbyists don't have to name lawmakers they meet or identify specific pieces of legislation.
Amy Babcock, a spokeswoman for the company, said no, not to our knowledge.
Jeffrey T. Monford said that the company had a responsibility to work with legislators on policies that best serve their customers.
The spokeswoman for Mr. Manchin wouldn't say if the senator had ever been lobbied by companies that owned a stake in Grant Town.
Kathleen Clark is a law professor at Washington University who specializes in government ethics. He was able to help craft, support or block legislation that affected the three companies. The companies that owned the Grant Town plant had influence over the decisions that could affect Mr. Manchin's income.
Ms. Clark said that Mr. Manchin's case shows the need to tighten ethics rules.
Mr. Manchin's power increased in 2020.
Mr. Biden promised to address climate change when he was elected president. Legislation that is split 50 Republicans to 48 Democrats and their two Independent allies needs to be moved through the Senate. Senate Democrats can't stop a bill by withholding support because Republicans are against it.
The spending bill that contained Mr. Biden's climate proposals was blocked by Mr. Manchin. There was a dispute in West Virginia that may have affected Mr. Manchin's incentives for opposing the federal climate bill.
The Grant Town plant could be closed due to tighter greenhouse gas regulations. The company said it needed cash to cover any new limits on pollution. AmBit asked Mon Power to cancel the rest of its contract in exchange for a payment of as much as $200 million or more. AmBit could try to find another customer for electricity from its Grant Town plant, and Mon Power could find another source of electricity at a lower cost.
The stakes were high for Mr. Manchin. The Grant Town power plant burned gob. If the federal climate rules put Grant Town out of business, there would be no other customers for its waste coal.
Mon Power did not accept the request for a buyout. The Public Service Commission was asked to force Mon Power to reconsider. In November, the commission held a hearing in Charleston to consider AmBit's request, just as discussions between Mr. Manchin and the White House over the climate bill were reaching their peak.
The founder and owner of AmBit said in a filing to the commission that failing to get a buyout will give us less protection against the anti fossil fuel sentiment and legislation.
The commission's chairwoman, Charlotte R. Lane, expressed skepticism, noting that just a few years had passed since the commission had granted the company its latest rate increase.
The commission rejected AmBit's request because of the chance of a financial buffer against tighter climate rules for Mr. Manchin's most important customer.
Mr. Manchin said in a statement that he could not support the president's bill.
The spokeswoman for Mr. Manchin did not respond to a question about whether his ties to Grant Town influenced his decision to oppose the bill.
The bill's effect on the power sector was one of the reasons Mr. Manchin gave.
We have invested billions of dollars into clean energy technologies so we can continue to lead the world in reducing emissions through innovation, Mr. Manchin said in December.
The statement did not mention Mr. Manchin's ties to Grant Town.
Kitty Bennett, Dionne Searcey and Steve Eder contributed to the report.
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