Foster parents may soon get more money for adopting children under a measure passed by the House of Delegates Tuesday aimed at alleviating West Virginia’s overburdened foster care system.
Delegates voted 96-1 to approve the bill, with Republican Del. Pat McGeehan as the lone no vote after he was told the measure would cost the state around $17 million.
“Great emphasis has been placed on the projected cost of this bill but we must acknowledge that this is an investment, an investment in West Virginia children,” said Del. Jason Barrett, a Berkeley County Democrat. “With these necessary increases agencies will be able to recruit and retain more foster families.”
The proposal, which now moves to the Senate, would give families at least $900 a month for each child adopted. Child placing agencies would also get $1,000 every time they finalize an adoption.
The bill also establishes a foster care bill of rights, which would ensure children and parents understand their rights in the state’s foster system. At least 15 states have enacted bills establishing a foster children’s bill of rights and 17 have foster parent bill of rights, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
West Virginia’s bill of rights proposal includes guarantees that foster children live in safe settings, should be free of sexual abuse and attend school. Foster parents would be entitled to receive child care training and know a child’s behavioral history prior to placement. The state’s foster care ombudsman would be charged with investigating violations of the bill of rights.
Del. Daryl Cowles, a Morgan County Republican, said it’s good to put such rights in state code.
“There’s a level of support needed for foster children in this state and this goes a long way to saying we want to support those things,” he said.
Records show more than 7,000 children in the state’s foster care system as of January, a nearly 70% increase from 2015. Officials have blamed the national opioid crisis for the increase.
On a recent soggy Wednesday evening, dozens of West Virginians packed a conference room inside the Charleston Coliseum and Convention Center to discuss the need for a “just transition” for coal-impacted communities.
As the nation grapples with climate change, the need for a fair transition for workers and communities that depend upon coal jobs and revenue has also gained traction. Nearly every 2020 Democratic presidential hopeful has touted some version of the idea, ranging from the expansive “Green New Deal” championed by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders to former Vice President Joe Biden’s more modest mix of worker training and direct assistance for coal country.
In West Virginia, discussions are starting to get attention in the state’s capital despite strong political support for the coal industry.
“When you’re hearing a call for a just transition for coal-reliant communities, folks are saying ‘look, starting now and into the future, we’re going to decarbonize the economy,’” said Ann Eisenberg, a law professor at the University of South Carolina. “There will be disproportionate losses imposed on coal-reliant communities. And that’s unfair. So we’re going to offset the losses. And that is where I think this is a good thing. And it’s also tricky.”
Eisenberg was one of a handful of experts who spoke at the event hosted by West Virginia University’s Center for Energy and Sustainable Development, the nonprofit West Virginia Center on Climate Change (an offshoot of conservation group Friends of Blackwater), and the left-leaning West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy.
The speakers facilitated a conversation about what constitutes a “just transition” as well as how West Virginia and other regions that depend on coal could actually get there.
Credit Brittany Patterson / WVPB
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WVPB
Three groups hosted a just transition discussion on Feb. 5, 2020 in Charleston, WV.
Adele Morris with the Brookings Institution said the first step is to acknowledge the clear data about coal. Even without a comprehensive climate policy, the fuel is already losing ground in the region and across the country. Low natural gas prices and the falling cost of renewable energy have priced many coal plants out of the market.
Federal data show since 2009, mining employment and coal production has fallen by about 50 percent in the Ohio Valley. The energy shift is already underway, Morris said, but without the part that would help communities make the transition.
“We’re in it. We’re in the transition,” said Morris, who is a senior fellow and policy director at the nonpartisan think tank. “And it’s going to get worse before it gets better. But it’s not fair. And that’s what I think should be urgently at the top of the agenda of the policymakers from coal country, and they’re not, in my opinion.”
Legislative Attempt
One lawmaker is making a pitch in West Virginia. State Del. Evan Hansen, a Democrat representing the north-central county of Monongalia, has introduced a bipartisan bill that would create a state Just Transition Office, and a community-led advisory committee that would focus on helping West Virginia communities affected by the decline of coal.
“The primary goal here is to write a just transition plan for the state of West Virginia that would look at ways to funnel funding into these communities and other types of resources into these communities in a manner that’s led by what people in those communities think is best,” Hansen said.
Still, he believes the appetite is growing among the state’s lawmakers to address coal’s decline.
“I would say privately many legislators of both parties acknowledge that there is a transition going on and that this is one of the most important issues that we need to deal with as a Legislature,” Hansen said.
Credit Alexandra Kanik / Ohio Valley ReSource
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Ohio Valley ReSource
Not everyone is a fan of the bill, including the West Virginia Coal Association.
“Sounds to me like that they think that it would be much better if it were something other than the coal miners,” said the group’s president Bill Raney. “And that bothers me a whole lot because we got the best coal miners in the world.”
Raney’s group is pushing a bill this legislative session that would require West Virginia coal plants to burn the same amount of coal they did in 2019 in the years ahead, regardless of what makes most economic sense.
Of major note during the discussion was how to pay for a “just transition.”
Today most economic transition work in the region comes from federal programs including the Appalachian Regional Commission and Abandoned Mine Land program funding, which offer grants to coal-affected communities in the millions of dollars range.
Credit Alexandra Kanik / Ohio Valley ReSource
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Ohio Valley ReSource
Morris has estimated the region will require tens of billions of dollars over the next decade and would require some kind of regulatory leadership from Washington, D.C., preferably a carbon tax. Democratic candidates who have supported the idea have differing ways to fund it, although most rely heavily on investing in clean energy and decarbonizing the economy through a “Green New Deal.”
Some in the region have encouraged lawmakers and candidates looking at these climate policies to engage with residents directly.
That includes Cecil Roberts, head of the United Mine Workers of America. In September, he spoke at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. He expressed concern the type of sweeping change Democratic presidential candidates are promising may be too big of a lift for Congress given its past track record in helping coal country.
“We want our health care saved, and if you can’t do that, and it’s been 10 years, how do you think we’re going to believe that you’re going to be able to give us a just transition from the coal industry to some other employment?” he said.
Kentucky Conversations
Chuck Fluharty, President and CEO of the Rural Policy Research Institute, helped to organize a community-centered, just transition model in eastern Kentucky called Shaping Our Appalachian Region, or SOAR. He said SOAR has shown this type of work is possible, especially if a community-centric approach is embraced. However, it’s not easy.
Credit Sydney Boles / Ohio Valley ReSource
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Ohio Valley ReSource
Kentucky entrepreneurs show their products at the 2019 SOAR Summit.
SOAR’s premise is built upon a collective impact investing model that engaged the public, private and philanthropic sectors.
“The real proof of the pudding is in how broad collective commitment is, and is it there for the money or is it there for the future?” he said. “How much it is about investing and not simply dropping dollars on the table.”
Some politicians hope to engage coalfield communities directly about how to balance implementing climate legislation while protecting workers and investing in communities. Kentucky Democratic state senator and U.S. Senate candidate Charles Booker recently launched a series of town meetings on the subject in the heart of eastern Kentucky coal country.
Even among those who support a just transition, questions remain about how best to do it. Morris said there is little data on what has worked in economic transitions in the past. Her team has looked at the impact of military base closures, for example, but said the analogy isn’t perfect. Worker retraining efforts often have mixed results.
“There’s this policy design challenge of how do you get from the wholesale dollars of the federal government into well designed retail level grants and assistance and so on,” she said. “I’m still struggling with exactly how you do that in a way that gets those resources out, but does it in a way that that gives people comfort that it’s responsibly allocated.”
In a report published last July, Morris and colleagues at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University quantified just how much of a coal-producing county’s budget came from coal, and how big a hole their budgets might face without coal revenue.
Then the authors turned to the various policy proposals to limit greenhouse gas emissions, which would set a price on each ton of carbon dioxide released to the atmosphere.
Morris said that the revenue generated by such policies could be steered into the type of investments needed and at a scale that would make a just transition more likely.
For example, a carbon tax of $25 per ton would likely raise a trillion dollars in revenue over 10 years, she said.
“And that kind of revenue allows for a very generous support for coal-reliant areas,” Morris said.
Some state lawmakers in West Virginia are looking at some ways to address our overcrowded prison system and help more previously incarcerated people reenter the workforce. What would criminal justice reform look like in West Virginia? Last year, several groups and non-profits went around the state to gather testimony and stories from over 200 people about their experiences with the criminal justice system. Their stories were collected through interviews, surveys and focus groups.
Lida Shepherd works with one of the groups spearheading the project, The American Friends Service Committee. Shepherd sat down with West Virginia Public Broadcasting to share some of the results.
***Editor’s Note: The following has been lightly edited for clarity.
Q: What were some of the themes that emerged from what people talked about?
LIDA SHEPHERD: We definitely heard a lot of trauma. I think, as a society, we fall into this trap of thinking that people who are formerly incarcerated, we look at them through this one dimensional lens of they are a criminal or they are a felon. And what we heard a lot about was people who had very complex lives and had really complex challenges growing up.
Q: And how does race and things like implicit bias factor into how people are treated by the criminal justice system in our state?
SHEPHERD: Looking at the numbers of the demographics of our prison system, there is no doubt that there is racial bias at every point of the system, from policing, to arrest, to who get sent to drug court.
Q: So the people who are often offered this opportunity for treatment as an alternative to being sent to jail or prison are often white, and the people that are of color often just get funneled into the prison system?
SHEPHERD: Yep. And I think it also shows up even in sentencing, the length that somebody is sentenced. So really at every single point, you see the racial bias show up. The numbers bear that out. And then as far as women incarceration, I mean, that’s a sector of the population that has just steadily climbed. We are incarcerating more women in this state, year after year. And that is in part attributed to, of course, the opioid crisis and just everything that occurs around addiction in West Virginia. And I think it’s also attributed to women actually being perceived differently by judges. There is actually a real gender bias when sentencing occurs. It’s a little counterintuitive, you would think that women would be let off more easily. But what we actually see is that women are actually sentenced more harshly. And I think part of that is because, quote unquote “bad behavior” amongst men is a little bit more expected, and therefore a little maybe more acceptable. A woman being brought before a judge for the same crime is actually sentenced more harshly.
Credit Courtesy Lida Shepherd/ American Friends Service Committee
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Lida Shepherd
Q: What did you hear about the types of ways that people are treated when they’re children? I know we have a high rate in the state of children being suspended, or being put into some type of juvenile justice situation. What did you hear about how people are treated as children, and how that transforms into their adult behavior?
SHEPHERD: You know, you’re listening to people’s stories. And often when you ask them to tell their story, it starts in childhood. And people talked about how situations that occurred in their childhood led them to acting out in school, that led them to getting expelled or suspended, lead them into the juvenile justice system. And we know that if you are in the juvenile justice system, your likelihood of ending up in the adult criminal justice system is very likely.
The first point of contact that kids often have with the juvenile justice system starts in schools. They end up in the juvenile justice system because of truancy, because of these really low-level status offenses.
And we are not equipping schools as much as we should be to really deal with the complex issues that these kids are facing. They’re coming into school every day bearing a lot of weight of trauma, and of adverse childhood experiences. And so I think really having those [mental health] services in schools, I think, would really go very far to keeping kids in school, not expelling them, not suspending them.
Q: So what happens next? What types of changes out of this project could occur?
SHEPHERD: Well, its legislative session, and the legislature is really taking a pretty careful look at how we can address and reduce incarceration. I think there is growing consensus that this is a really expensive way of dealing with very complex social problems. So we’re seeing a big effort to look at our money bail system, so that people aren’t being held in regional jails who have not been convicted of a crime, but simply cannot afford to make bail.
There’s also an effort to basically look at our parole system and make sure that people are being released earlier who pose no threat to public safety. Once they are parole eligible, they are paroled. And that we are providing as much support to them upon release, because definitely one of the things we’ve heard over and over again is that the barriers to people who are released from jail are often insurmountable barriers to employment: housing, transportation, food. And while we’ve been tackling some of those barriers, we have a long way to go.
Lida Shepherd works with with the American Friends Service Committee and was one of the people involved in the Criminal Justice Listening Project, which compiled the testimonies of people across West Virginia. The majority of those interviewed have experienced incarceration or have had family members behind bars.
Proponents of increasing renewable energy generation in the Mountain State are once again urging West Virginia lawmakers to legalize a common financing method — power purchase agreements, or PPAs.
PPAs allow third-party developers to install solar panels on residential or business property at little cost to the property owner. The developer sells the power generated to the host — saving them money on their power bill — and the developer makes money by selling any excess power to the utility and through tax credits and incentives.
This arrangement is one of the most popular ways to boost solar installation. It’s legal in 28 states, including many of West Virginia’s neighbors, but the practice remains illegal here.
A report released this week by West Virginians For Energy Freedom, national solar advocacy group Solar United Neighbors and West Virginia-based consultancy firm Downstream Strategies estimates if legislation is enacted to allow third-party solar installation, at least 13 megawatts of solar power capacity could be installed across the state and create almost 400 jobs.
The group based its estimates on results from Virginia’s ongoing PPA pilot program.
West Virginia has about 8 MW of solar installed that supports about 340 jobs, according to data from the 2018 Solar Jobs Census.
The report also argues PPAs would allow institutions, individuals and businesses to save money by allowing them to lock into long-term power contracts for the renewable energy generated on site at a time when, on average, nationwide electricity prices are trending upward.
Bipartisan bills introduced last session to legalize the practice died in committee. Proponents said they intend to try again during the 2020 session.
Democratic Dels. Barbara Evans Fleischauer and Rodney Pyles introduced House Bill 3072 on Wednesday. The bill would legalize solar PPAs. Both lawmakers represent the 51st district, in Monongalia County.
A committee has been formed in the West Virginia Senate to focus on upcoming legislation related to child welfare.
The Senate Select Committee on Children and Families, whose formation was announced Wednesday, will be led by Kanawha County Republican and Senate Majority Leader Tom Takubo.
The committee will focus on issues related to the state’s ongoing foster care crisis and substance abuse epidemic, the Senate said in a news release.
The state’s foster ranks have swelled to about 7,000 children as the state grapples with the opioid crisis. West Virginia leads the nation by far in the rate of drug overdose deaths.
The statement cited a recent legislative audit that found the Department of Health and Human Resources’ Child Protective Services did not meet a required time frame for investigating child abuse and neglect allegations in 50 percent of cases in fiscal year 2018.
In addition, Child Protective Services continues to experience high turnover, while the drug epidemic has increased CPS worker caseloads by 79 percent since 2015.
The committee was formed because legislation on child welfare issues otherwise would have had to compete with dozens of other bills if they had been channeled through other committees.
“Our children are our state’s most precious resource, and it’s clear that despite our best efforts, we are falling way short in adequately providing for the needs of the ones who need us the most,” Senate President Carmichael said. “My hope with this new Select Committee is that the members take a deep dive on these issues and work toward the kinds of solutions that will ensure no child in the state of West Virginia gets lost in a bureaucracy that does not put them on the best path to stability, comfort, and self-worth.”
The GOP-controlled legislature began its regular session Wednesday.
Takubo and fellow committee member Ron Stollings, D-Boone, are physicians. The nine-member committee also includes Senate education chairwoman Patricia Rucker, R-Jefferson, and Democrat Paul Hardesty, a former board of education chairman in Logan County.
“It brings everything to the forefront,” Takubo said in an interview before the Senate convened Wednesday. “Politics will kind of divide Senate members or House members, but the one thing we’ve always been (in the) loop on is families and children. We’re trying to bring in the resources of the Senate members to look at this as a whole.”
The state also faces a federal class-action lawsuit alleging the foster care system has failed to protect children. The state is seeking to dismiss the suit, brought by nonprofit advocacy groups and a law firm on behalf of a dozen children.
Department of Health and Human Resources Secretary Bill Crouch continues to make substantive changes to its system.
The lawsuit describes stories of alleged neglect and harm done to foster children in DHHR’s care. Marcia Lowry, executive director of the nonprofit A Better Childhood, has said the state isn’t doing enough to deal with problems in its foster system.
A group of Democratic West Virginia lawmakers announced plans Monday to introduce legislation to regulate a group of toxic, man-made fluorinated chemicals.
Del. Evan Hansen, who represents most of Monongalia County, and a group of colleagues, said the “Clean Drinking Water Act” would address the release of per- and polyfluoroalkyl chemicals, also called PFAS chemicals. The class of chemicals includes C8, or PFOA, the chemical produced and dumped in the Parkersburg area for decades by chemical giant DuPont.
The effect of the chemical and related events were recently brought to the silver screen in the blockbuster film, “Dark Waters” starring Mark Ruffalo and Anne Hatheway.
Hansen said the bill, which is still being drafted, would require facilities that use or produce PFAS chemicals to disclose that information to the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection. The DEP would be required to monitor these facilities and regulate their discharges of these chemicals into waterways. Currently, PFAS chemicals are unregulated nationwide.
The second component of the bill would set legally-enforceable drinking water limits, or Maximum Contaminant Levels, for some PFAS chemicals.
The legislation comes at a time when both U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and state regulators are increasingly testing for, finding and seeking regulations for these so-called “forever chemicals.”
In recent years, a growing number of communities have detected PFAS in their drinking water. The chemicals are widely used including in everything from pizza boxes to flame-retardant foam sprays and in nonstick and stain-resistant products like Teflon.
Ohio announced in September it would begin monitoring water systems near known contamination sites. In Berkeley County, federal researchers are currently studying residents’ exposure to C8 after it was found at a water treatment plant in Martinsburg. The contamination was likely due to groundwater contamination from the Shepherd Field Air National Guard Base, which used PFAS-laden firefighting foam.
Research conducted in the Mid Ohio Valley after DuPont’s settlement over C8 contamination linked chemical exposure to six diseases including thyroid disease, as well as testicular and kidney cancer.
“I think we owe it to the citizens of West Virginia, especially considering we were ground zero for the impacts of many of these chemicals, we owe it to the people of West Virginia to take matters into our own hands,” Hansen said.
The EPA is currently weighing how to set drinking water standards for PFOS and PFOA. A handful of states have set their own limits, much lower than the EPA’s current health advisory of 60 parts-per-trillion.
Hansen said if the bill is passed, West Virginia would examine both EPA’s decisions and state actions. He also noted he hopes to put safeguards in the legislation so that if contamination is found, rate payers and cash-strapped municipalities won’t be on the hook for paying for cleanup.
“What we are going to get out of this is the chance of transparency,” said Angie Rosser, executive director of the West Virginia Rivers Coalition, which supports the bill. “Companies will have to tell us what is in our water.”
Rosser and others said clean water is key to boosting the state’s economy.
“The people of our state know polluting industries drive away clean industries,” said Del. John Doyle, a Democrat from Jefferson County.
When asked about the bill’s chances of making its way through the Republican-controlled Legislature, Hansen said he recognized it could be a tough sell, but said he’s open to hearing any ideas from his colleagues across the aisle or other interested groups.
“I don’t think clean drinking water is a partisan issue,” he said.
During the 2020 session, Hansen, who is an environmental scientist, said he also intends to reintroduce a proposed amendment to the state’s Bill of Rights that would enshrine clean air, water and the preservation of the natural environment as constitutional rights for current and future generations.
The measure was introduced last session and had more than 30 co-sponsors. Two other states — Pennsylvania and Montana — have adopted a similar constitutional amendment. If passed, the environmental rights amendment would serve as a guiding principle for state leaders and regulatory agencies.
