Associated Press Published

Senate Task Force to Aid Southern W.Va. Coalfields

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  Senate President Jeff Kessler is setting up a task force as part of a push to help West Virginia’s struggling southern coalfields.

On Thursday, the Marshall County Democrat announced the Southern Coalfields Organizing and Revitalizing the Economy initiative, or SCORE.

The program is based off the Shaping our Appalachian Region program, which has similar goals for eastern Kentucky’s hurting coalfields.

Kessler’s 13-member Senate task force will look at a variety of ways to revitalize the coalfields.

Some include increasing tourism advertising, education and workforce development and retraining, redevelopment projects, agribusiness and rural development, better broadband Internet, expanded intermodal transportation, development of coalbed methane, and clean coal research and development.

The panel will hold regional listening sessions. It will present recommendations for consideration in the 60-day legislative session starting in January.