U.S. Senator Joe Manchin has promised to block a proposed royalty for minerals extracted on federal land from advancing in the U.S. Senate’s version of the hotly debated reconciliation package, a senate staffer said on Thursday. Manchin, a West Virginia Democrat and chair of the Senator’s Energy and Natural Resources committee, promised U.S. Senator Catherine Cortez Masto, a Nevada Democrat, that the royalty proposal would not be included in the Senate’s final reconciliation language, according to Cortez Masto’s office. Manchin’s office declined to comment. The pledge to block the royalty proposal in committee and ... (full story)