On this West Virginia Morning, state lawmakers are mulling over countless tax proposals that would directly affect West Virginians and their wallets. On Friday’s episode of The Legislature Today, Randy Yohe spoke with House Speaker Roger Hanshaw, R-Clay, and Kelly Allen, the executive director at the West Virginia Center on Budget & Policy, to discuss budgets and taxes.
On this West Virginia Morning, state lawmakers are mulling over countless tax proposals that would directly affect West Virginians and their wallets. On Friday’s episode of The Legislature Today, Randy Yohe spoke with House Speaker Roger Hanshaw, R-Clay, and Kelly Allen, the executive director at the West Virginia Center on Budget & Policy, to discuss budgets and taxes.
Also, in this show, we have the latest story from The Allegheny Front – a public radio program that reports on environmental issues in the region. We listen to their story about replacing coal and natural gas jobs with clean energy jobs.
West Virginia Morning is a production of West Virginia Public Broadcasting which is solely responsible for its content.
Support for our news bureaus comes from Shepherd University.
Eric Douglas is our producer.
Listen to West Virginia Morning weekdays at 7:43 a.m. on WVPB Radio or subscribe to the podcast and never miss an episode. #WVMorning
The $30 million project will use Form’s batteries to store and discharge power for 100 hours, according to the California Energy Commission.
Weirton’s Form Energy will build storage batteries for a project in California.
Form Energy will supply iron oxide batteries for a Pacific Gas & Electric energy storage project in Mendocino County.
The $30 million project will use Form’s batteries to store and discharge power for 100 hours, according to the California Energy Commission.
That fills a gap between solar generation during the day and wind generation at night. The energy captured at off-peak times can be discharged to the grid when demand is the highest.
The batteries will be built in Weirton. The plant is under construction and will begin producing batteries next year.
Iron oxide batteries use rust to store electricity and cost less than lithium ion technology. California has set a goal for 100 percent clean energy by 2045.
“A multiday battery system is transformational for California’s energy mix,” said David Hochschild, chairman of the California Energy Commission. “This project will enhance our ability to harness excess renewables during nonpeak hours for use during peak demand, especially as we work toward a goal of 100 percent clean electricity.”
According to the commission, California had 6,600 megawatts of battery storage in August, with four to six hours of discharge. Long-duration discharge is considered eight to 100 hours.
Form Energy is building its plant on the former site of Weirton Steel and could employ 750 workers or more.
The sprawling economic package passed by the U.S. Senate this week has a certain West Virginia flavor. There’s the focus on energy, including billions of dollars in incentives for clean energy but also renewed support for traditional fuel sources such as coal and natural gas.
The sprawling economic package passed by the U.S. Senate this week has a certain West Virginia flavor.
The package, passed with no Republican votes, could be read largely as an effort to help West Virginia look to the future without turning away entirely from its roots.
The bill contains billions in incentives for clean energy — while also offering renewed support for traditional fuel sources such as coal and natural gas — as well as big boosts for national parks and health care for low-income people and coal miners with black lung disease. That’s no accident. Most provisions were included as the price the Democrats had to pay to win the all-important support of Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who says they will help folks back home.
John Palmer, a 67-year-old retired coal miner from Monongah, says it’s about time.
“We ain’t had too many people care about us,” Palmer said. “We’re always out there fighting for different things. Everybody’s got an agenda, and our agenda was for working-class people. That’s what everybody’s agenda should be, but it’s not.”
J. Scott Applewhite/AP
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AP
FILE – Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., speaks to reporters at the Capitol in Washington, Aug. 1, 2022. The sprawling economic package passed by the U.S. Senate this week has a certain West Virginia flavor. The bill, hammered out in negotiations between Manchin and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and passed with no Republican votes, could be read largely as an effort to help West Virginia look to the future without turning away entirely from its roots. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
Manchin, a conservative Democrat who chairs the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, was a key vote needed to pass the spending package in the 50-50 Senate and send it to the House, where lawmakers are expected to take it up Friday.
The bill invests nearly $375 billion to fight climate change, caps prescription drug costs at $2,000 out-of-pocket for Medicare recipients and helps an estimated 13 million Americans pay for health insurance by extending subsidies provided during the coronavirus pandemic.
If those subsidies are not extended, West Virginia is among the states that will lose the most support for people paying for health insurance, according to the Urban Institute, meaning thousands of people could lose coverage.
Kelly Allen, executive director of the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy, said the provision in the bill to cap insulin prices at $35 a dose for seniors will make a big impact in the state, which has the greatest number of people living with diabetes per capita in the country.
“There are people who ration insulin, or who have to make decisions between getting groceries and paying for a drug cost, or paying rent and paying for drug costs,” she said.
But Manchin, who has received more campaign contributions this election cycle from natural gas pipeline companies than any other lawmaker, won concessions on the climate front. The bill includes money to encourage alternative energy and to bolster fossil fuels with steps such as subsidies for technology that reduces carbon emissions. It also requires the government to open more federal land and waters to oil drilling.
In a statement, Manchin said he worked with colleagues to craft the “most effective way” to help West Virginia. He declined to be interviewed for this story.
Manchin also has proposed a separate list of legislation to speed up federal permitting and make energy projects harder to block under federal acts. As part of an agreement with Democratic leadership, he specifically asked that federal agencies “take all necessary actions” to streamline completion of the Mountain Valley Pipeline, a project long opposed by environmental activists.
The 303-mile (487-kilometer) pipeline, which is mostly finished, would transport natural gas drilled from the Appalachian Basin through West Virginia and Virginia. Legal battles have delayed completion by nearly four years and doubled the pipeline’s cost, now estimated at $6.6 billion.
Chelsea Barnes, legislative director for Appalachian Voices, an environmental organization that sued to stop the pipeline, said there’s a lot to be excited about in the legislation. But she deemed Manchin’s concessions to the fossil fuel industry “unacceptable.”
“We’d really love to just be celebrating,” Barnes said, “but we know that there’s so much in the bill that is also going to hurt communities.”
Barnes said the bill contains many provisions her organization has wanted for a long time, such as extending and increasing tax credits for clean energy projects, with bonus credits for low-income communities and for communities where a coal mine or power plant has closed.
That means there’s going to be a higher incentive for clean energy developers to set up shop in Appalachia. She said many people she’s worked with on clean energy projects are not excited to see coal jobs disappear but are excited to be part of “the energy economy of the future.”
“They like the idea of retaining that energy-producing heritage, and I think there’s a lot of pride in continuing that role in our society, in our culture,” she said.
Still, she’s concerned about support for carbon sequestration and storage projects in the bill, saying they haven’t been cost-effective compared with clean energy alternatives. She fears that might prolong the life of power plants.
She also said permitting reform in the bill amounts to “permitting destruction” that would damage the environmental review process and silence residents’ voices.
The bill also contains millions of dollars for tourism, long seen in West Virginia as a way to boost the state’s beleaguered economy. West Virginia is home to multiple national parks, including the New River Gorge National Park and Preserve, which opened in 2020.
The National Park System would receive at least $1 billion in the package to hire new employees and carry out projects to conserve and protect wilderness areas.
The bill also permanently extends the excise tax on coal that pays for monthly benefits for coal miners with black lung disease, which is caused by inhaling coal dust.
Since the program’s inception, more retired miners in West Virginia have received black lung benefits than any other state, with 4,423 people receiving benefits last year. But the fund is $6 billion in debt.
For decades, the tax has required annual legislative approval. Twice in recent years, federal lawmakers failed to extend the tax, most recently for this year. That cut the tax by more than half — a windfall to coal companies that put benefits in jeopardy.
The fund is needed more than ever, United Mine Workers of America Chief of Staff Phil Smith said, with miners being diagnosed with black lung at younger ages than before because of higher amounts of silica dust in mines — something that’s not regulated.
Palmer worked underground for 40 years at the Federal No. 2 Mine in Monongalia County, which went bankrupt and shut down shortly after he retired a few years ago. His father, a coal miner, died of a lung disease, and his younger brother also has black lung. He said knowing the money will be there is a “relief” and that miners earn the benefit — an average of just over $700 a month — when they risk doing dangerous work.
“We went down in these holes that kept the lights on for everybody,” he said. “We’re the ones sacrificing our bodies.”
Democrats made their pitch to the American people during a largely virtual Democratic National Convention and addressing climate change emerged as a central tenet of the party’s plan.
The party platform spells out a major investment in green energy jobs and infrastructure in order for America to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emission no later than by 2050. Environmental justice is a key component of the Democrat’s climate plan and it references ensuring fossil fuel workers and communities receive investment and support during this clean energy transition.
“As President, Joe Biden will rejoin the international climate agreement, and the United States will once again lead on this critical issue at home,” New Mexico Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said while standing in front of a field of solar panels. “He’ll invest in energy workers and he will deliver for working families across the U.S., helping them build meaningful careers, while accelerating our nation and world into a clean, green 21st century and well beyond.”
The $2 trillion proposal has big implications for areas of the country whose economies are built on fossil fuel extraction, including the coal-heavy Ohio Valley. For over a decade, communities in the region have reckoned with the energy transition as coal demand shrinks. Since 2009, coal production and employment have fallen by roughly 50 percent in the Ohio Valley as power generators sought out less expensive and cleaner energy sources including natural gas and renewable energy and the decline has sharpened due to the recent coronavirus economic fallout.
In recent months, multiple regional coalitions have put forward policy blueprints aimed at putting Appalachia and its needs front and center in this growing national conversation around a “just transition.”
As the 2020 election season heats up, they’re urging political leaders to continue the dialogue with residents of Appalachia in order to deliver on party platform promises as the energy transition accelerates.
Grassroots Groups Respond
“In the national arena Appalachia is and will continue to be a political stumbling block to national climate change legislation until we figure out what Appalachia really needs,” said Amanda Woodrum, co-director of ReImagine Appalachia, a coalition of progressive policy and environmental groups that recently released a framework for the region as it shifts away from resource extraction.
She said many of the ideas in the Democratic Party platform are exciting. The document pledges 40 percent of investment in vulnerable communities. It also explicitly recognizes that coal miners and power plant workers will be impacted as the economy shifts toward more clean energy, and advocates for the protection of retirees’ health and pension benefits.
This story is the first in a series revisiting themes, places and people in the new Ohio Valley ReSource book, “Appalachian Fall.”
Credit Tiller Press
“I think one of my concerns, though, is that it only actually mentions Appalachia once, and we believe that there needs to be a completely concentrated and focused effort on what the needs are of Appalachia,” Woodrum said.
And those needs look different than in other extraction-based economies, said Joanne Kilgour, executive director of the Ohio River Valley Institute, a new think tank focused on the region. Unlike some fossil fuel-based economies such as Alaska and Wyoming, states such as West Virginia and Kentucky have not created funds aimed at marshalling financial resources from resource extraction that could be used to invest in a transition.
Appalachia never fully recovered from the Great Recession and, like much of the country, is now reeling from the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“So, I think with any kind of federal proposal, there’s a tendency to try to apply the same policy or the same principle, the same rhetoric, to each region throughout the country,” she said. “But it’s very clear to me that the needs of workers and working families in the Ohio River Valley is very different from the needs of workers and working families and in other parts of the country.”
Kilgour urged policymakers to lean on the grassroots groups doing transition work in the region. That includes the National Economic Transition Platform.
Brandon Dennison is the founder and CEO of Coalfield Development, a not-for-profit organization in southern West Virginia dedicated to rebuilding the region’s economy in sustainable ways. He said in Appalachia one thing that needs to be recognized is the sacrifice made by those who mined coal for decades.
Coalfield Development’s Danny Ferguson and trainee Jacob Dyer on a job site.https://www.wvpublic.org/sites/wvpn/files/styles/square_thumbnail/public/202008/coalfield_development_job.jpg
Credit Rebecca Kiger
“It’s not about a handout,” he said. “It’s really about our country honoring the incredible sacrifices folks and fossil fuel areas have made to power this country’s development and to get this country where it is today.”
Politicians have left promises unfulfilled in Appalachia, he said, and while he sees promise in the Democratic party platform, he said he understands if it doesn’t resonate with voters here.
“You know, the proof will have to be in the pudding, so to speak,” he said.
Labor Reaction
More details would also please the United Mine Workers of America, which has been involved in conversations with the Biden campaign.
.@DNC talking about energy jobs while showing solar panel installers is troubling. None are union, all are contractors to avoid organizing. Dem climate plan still needs concrete, specific solution for traditional energy workers besides “trust us.” #DemConvention2020
Spokesperson Phil Smith said the union fully acknowledges the country is moving away from coal toward cleaner energy, but the bulk of solar jobs, for example, are not “good union jobs” as the Biden ticket promises.
“There are some in the Democratic Party hierarchy, who buy into the notion that we can just set up a commission and everything will be fine, and we can spend money and train people to do something else and everything will be fine,” he said. “That’s not going to work. That is not a transition; that is pushing a problem away.”
This story is the first in a series revisiting themes, places and people in the new Ohio Valley ReSource book, “Appalachian Fall.”
