Last summer, House of Delegates leaders from both parties announced that a new key committee of lawmakers they promised would be “dedicated to developing proposals to help revitalize West Virginia communities.”
The group traveled to the state, hosting meetings and asking residents for ideas on how to help communities struggling with the decline of the coal industry.
Seven months later, as the 2022 legislative session begins, a report on the commission’s work has yet to be released, and the commission’s work has not yet produced anything resembling a long list of proposed bills for lawmakers to consider.
The only idea members of the committee reached consensus on seemed to be to create a government fund that would provide similar funds so coalfield communities could benefit from massive federal spending from the infrastructure bill and other potential federal programs.
Delegate Mark Dean, a Mingo County Republican and co-chair of the group, said members have this proposed legislation “in the tank,” but declined to discuss further details until the committee has another meeting.
Delegate Ed Evans, D-McDowell and his colleagues encouraged community members at their meetings across the state to apply for available federal funds to help energy communities transition. That would include $38 billion in funding a federal task force pulled from other agencies to help 25 energy-dependent communities, including those in West Virginia. The lawmakers also encouraged local governments to plan infrastructure projects, following a $1 trillion package signed in late 2021, and grants yet to be announced through the Appalachian Regional Commission.
“We’re going to feel like we’re going to get the lion’s share of some of that money,” said Evans, the committee’s co-chair.
But community members like Boone County’s Chris Mitchell said it’s difficult for counties like hers to apply for federal funding where there are local matching requirements.
“Frankly, most of southwest Virginia has no semblance to put into the game,” Mitchell, who directs the Boone County Foundation for Economic and Social Development, said in November. “Things are long gone.”
One nagging question is whether lawmakers, even if they create a program to help local communities match federal grants, the state will actually allocate any money to that program during the budget process.
There is reason to doubt. Lawmakers not long ago attempted to create a fund dedicated to economic diversification efforts in some West Virginia communities themselves, as well as others that also depended on declining extractive industries. Similar to similar programs in other countries and states, lawmakers created the “Future Fund” in 2014 at the behest of then-Senate Speaker Jeff Kessler and after significant urging from the West Virginia Center for Budget and Policy.
But while the legislators created the “Future Fund” as a program, they never spent any money in it. Instead, they set up a series of triggers so that no money would be allocated unless a separate Rainy Day State Fund reached a certain level.
“They knew frankly that this fund would not have any money for the foreseeable future,” said Ted Buettner, who was the executive director of the Center for Budget and Policy at the time. “It was not an accident.”
Today, the fund is in state law, but there is no account, according to the West Virginia Investment Board, which will be responsible for overseeing the account’s investments once it receives the funds.
However, Buettner said he is optimistic that West Virginia has made progress in some ways. Ten years ago, he said, not everyone acknowledged there was a problem in West Virginia.
“Before you make a plan or anything, it helps to know you have a problem,” said Buettner, who is now a researcher at the Ohio River Valley Institute. “We’re in a better place in terms of realizing that, I think.”
No shortage of ideas
After the commission was formed last year, lawmakers held five meetings across the state, in both the northern and southern coalfields.
Attendees gave lawmakers enough to think — the decay of water and sewage infrastructure, dilapidated buildings without clear ownership, widespread addiction, job training and employment opportunities.
In Scotts Run, County Monongalia, old residents such as Mary Jane Coulter and Al Anderson wrote a letter to lawmakers demanding clean sewers and paved roads.
“We have people coming in from Charleston every two years,” Anderson said. “They come to speak at our street fair, and then we never see them again.”
Some lawmakers such as Delegate Evan Hansen, de Monongalia, already have plans to introduce their own bills. Hansen’s ideas include legislation to reuse retired coal-fired power plants and a bill he introduced earlier to encourage the creation of solar energy jobs in former coal mines. But Hansen acknowledged that efforts to plan ahead have been thwarted during nearly every legislative session by coal industry allies.
“No one quite knows how long coal mining and burning to generate electricity will last, but I think there is a general recognition that this is fading,” Hansen said.
Evans said, though, that he’s optimistic.
“Any bill that is written,” he said, “there will always be people against it.” So we’ll have to fight some hardliners, Republicans and Democrats. I feel that the legislation that we brought up helps communities – how can anyone vote against that? “
Originally, the group was scheduled to meet during this week’s interim session, but the leadership has postponed that so lawmakers can focus on a series of economic development bills not directly related to coalfield revitalization efforts, but which Governor Jim Just is expected to promote in his book. . State address.
Dean said members of the legislature plan to complete and publish the draft report by Friday, January 14. The committee will meet next week, he said.