This week, people with mental health challenges or substance use disorder often end up in jail. But crisis response teams offer another way. Also, one year after the Mountain Valley Pipeline went into service, people who live directly in the pipeline’s path have received compensation. But not everyone. And, the Sacred Harp songbook gets an update for the first time since the early 1990s.
Energy & Environment Stakeholders Weigh In On Legislative Session
Listen
Share this Article
On this episode of The Legislature Today, Curtis Tate speaks with Emmett Pepper of Energy Efficient West Virginia and Lucia Valentine of the West Virginia Environmental Council about energy and environment legislation they’re following, including Senate Bill 592, which would relax safeguards for aboveground storage tanks.
Monday was also Environment Day at the Capitol. Groups held a public hearing outside the House chamber in opposition to Senate Bill 592. An aboveground storage tank leak in 2014 contaminated the drinking water supply for 300,000 residents in the Charleston area.
In the Senate, rules committees don’t meet very often, and bills assigned to them are often considered shelved for the session. As Chris Schulz reports, two bills nearing completion in the Senate were sent to the chamber’s Rules Committee.
In the House, the chamber reviewed several bills for their final reading, touching on topics like voter registration and reading education. Jack Walker brings us the rundown.
Having trouble viewing the video below? Click here to watch it on YouTube.
The Legislature Today is West Virginia’s only television/radio simulcast devoted to covering the state’s 60-day regular legislative session.
Watch or listen to new episodes Monday through Friday at 6 p.m. on West Virginia Public Broadcasting.
When his Welch, W. Va. restaurant was functional following massive February flooding across the southern part of the state, Roberto Diaz went to work feeding anyone in need -- but now his business needs help with its own recovery.
Wyoming County is one of the state’s most rural. It’s home to about 20,000 residents, but no hospital and zero certified treatment beds, according to the West Virginia Office of Drug Control Policy. As the nation’s opioid overdose epidemic raged, Wyoming County had a prescription overdose death rate of 54.6 per 100,000 people from 1999 to 2014 — the highest in the nation.
An investigation conducted by journalism students at West Virginia University’s Reed School of Media shows the oversight and accountability built into local spending of opioid settlement funds can be markedly inconsistent from county to county.
