West Virginia’s U.S. senators brought home tens of millions of dollars in funding for projects statewide in a budget bill Congress approved late Friday.
U.S. Sens. Joe Manchin and Shelley Moore Capito, both members of the Senate Appropriations Committee, each released a list of more than 100 projects that will receive federal funding from the budget bill.
They include $12 million to finish a section of Corridor H from Wardensville to the Virginia state line. As well as $10 million to upgrade the water system in the town of West Union.
They also include funding for a farmers’ market in Martinsburg, to upgrade the historic Capitol Market in Charleston and to build the Capital Sports Center nearby.
Fire stations, communications systems, locks and dams, community colleges and universities, military bases, streets and sidewalks, courthouse security and police cruisers will benefit from what used to be called earmarks, now congressionally directed spending.
Manchin’s and Capito’s seats on the Appropriations Committee give West Virginia unusually powerful sway on where and how federal funds are spent.