Economy Story Archives - Page 156 of 164 - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

W.Va. Lottery Revenue Falls in January

West Virginia Lottery officials say revenue continued to drop in January.The Charleston Gazette reports that state lottery revenue fell 12 percent from…

West Virginia Lottery officials say revenue continued to drop in January.

The Charleston Gazette reports that state lottery revenue fell 12 percent from January 2013 to $89.45 million.

Racetrack video lottery at the state’s four racetrack casinos continued to fall in January, as competition in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Maryland continues to put a crunch on revenues.

Table games at the casinos experienced a sharper plunge, with gross revenue down 35 percent from a year ago. Traditional on-line and scratch-off games also were down.

Officials say year-to-date lottery revenue of $612.49 million is down 8 percent from the same point in the 2012-13 budget year.

The state’s share of lottery profits year-to-date of $263.93 million is down $24.74 million from the same point in the previous budget year.

FirstEnergy Plans Infrastructure Upgrades in W.Va.

FirstEnergy Corp. is planning $110 million worth of infrastructure upgrades in West Virginia this year. Ohio-based FirstEnergy said Thursday that the…

FirstEnergy Corp. is planning $110 million worth of infrastructure upgrades in West Virginia this year.

Ohio-based FirstEnergy said Thursday that the projects include transmission improvements, construction of new distribution lines, and replacement of underground cables, utility poles and other equipment.

FirstEnergy’s president of West Virginia operations, Holly Kauffman, says in a news release that the projects are designed to help reduce the number and duration of potential outages and to prepare for future growth.

FirstEnergy subsidiary Mon Power serves about 385,000 customers in 34 West Virginia counties.

Growers Sought for W.Va. Hops Production Research

Growers are being sought to participate in a three-year research project to determine the viability of hop production in West Virginia. The project will…

Growers are being sought to participate in a three-year research project to determine the viability of hop production in West Virginia.

The project will be conducted by the West Virginia State University Extension Service.

Extension agent Brad Cochran says in a news release that researchers want to determine the best varieties of hops to grow in West Virginia.

The goal is to foster commercial production of hops and to support the state’s brewing industry.

Up to six growers will be selected to participate in the project. They will collect data on the growing habits of hops.

Applications must be submitted by March 20. They are available online at wvstateu.edu/extension.

State and Local Tourism Evaluate Post-Spill Plans, Conference Participants Leave With No Bad Taste

With the state eclipsing the $5 billion mark for tourism revenue in 2012, this week’s Travel South Conference in Charleston gave visitors bureaus across the state a chance to cash in and drive even more tourism opportunities to their respective areas. But the conference comes nearly seven weeks after the spill of thousands of gallons of MCHM into the Elk River by Freedom Industries.

Many locals worry that the tourism economy would, much like the water, be left with a tainted reputation. Tourism professionals from across the country seemed unphased by the water crisis while here and local travel professionals hope the stigma of the spill won’t last.

“We had worked on this for 18 months and we really felt comfortable, quite honestly, that the group would not start seeing cancelations,” said West Virginia Division of Tourism Commissioner Betty Carver.

Given the circumstances surrounding the chemical spill and water crisis, Carver said her office, along with Governor Tomblin and Commerce Secretary Keith Burdette, is evaluating a new marketing campaign following the incident. She said it’s not yet known when that project will launch.

Leading up to the conference, Carver said she reached out to other organizers of the conference to gauge whether or not participants would actually show. One person she called after the spill was Travel South Executive Director Liz Bittner.

Bittner has some experience with trying to help cities and states market themselves after disasters, like the BP Oil spill into the Gulf Coast in 2010. She said conference participants didn’t express any concerns over the water while in Charleston.

“I haven’t heard anything from any of my delegates as far as concerns about the water. Again, we’re focused on driving economic development and economic tourism and the business at hand,” Bittner said.

“All of the hotels, the restaurants, the convention center and all of the places that we’re going to are using filtered water. It’s been tested. It’s been cleared by the CDC. And, so, it’s really been a non-issue.”

As for the conference itself, hundreds of representatives from 11 states presented their opportunities to potential travel operators. It’s sort of like the tourism industry’s version of speed dating.

General Manager of Carr’s Holidays from upstate New York, Michael Guidi sat down with Group Sales Manager Lauren Hunt of the Charleston Convention and Visitor’s Bureau. He’s looking to bring travel groups from his area, like high school marching bands, to various destinations around the U.S.

Strangely enough, Guidi wasn’t concerned with the water here, or even how it might affect his business and their decision on whether or not to bring tourists to Charleston or elsewhere in West Virginia.

“Other people have addressed it so…I mean, for me it’ll be future trips, anyway. Trips that’ll come won’t happen for another year or so. So, hopefully it’ll be addressed by then,” said Guidi.

He said he noticed coverage of the spill and water crisis on national media and became only somewhat worried. Even so, his concerns were quickly quelled once he arrived to town.

“It seems to have been handled. When I checked into the hotel, they were great about it and explained everything. No fears, no worries,” he explained.

Hunt said Guidi’s take on Charleston’s water is representative of almost all of the operators and travel writers she had met with.

“Actually, I’ve only had one appointment that’s even mentioned it. Everyone’s been very supportive and very in our corner. They know it can happen anywhere and they’re just happy to be here,” said Hunt.

Hunt said that participant packed five cases of bottled water for the trip to Chalreston.

“But she wanted me to know she didn’t have to use it, so she was pleased,” Hunt said.

While early estimates of the economic hit Charleston small businesses took in the earliest moments of the water crisis place that figure in the tens of millions of dollars, many local tourism professionals see this as a chance to reboot the local economy.

“We don’t want to focus on negative things. We want these people to come back and add to West Virginia’s economy. This spill has already really hurt our economy and we’re trying to do something that’s going to have an impact in a year,” said Bill Richardson, who operates Hatfield-McCoy and coal history tours out of Logan County.

“These people will all come back next summer with these groups. We’re trying to focus on the positive things because we need this money to make up for all of the money we lost because of the spill.”

Richardson said he believes the timing of the spill and water crisis in the off-peak winter season might’ve insulated the small business and tourism economies to some degree.

But the question remains as far as what, if any, long-term impressions the water crisis might leave on those looking to travel to the area.

Jobs First Program Helps Huntington’s Homeless

Officials at the Cabell-Huntington Coalition for the Homeless are taking a new approach to the problem of homelessness and unemployment.

Jobs First is a new idea developed by coalitions around the country. Instead of working with job candidates by training, developing and molding them before they apply for jobs, Jobs First helps them find jobs right away and continues to train them while they’re employed.

Helping the unemployed and homeless find work first puts them one step closer to a stable living environment where they can provide for themselves.

The Huntington Coalition started the program last July with a goal of helping 10% of Huntington’s homeless gain employment in a year.

The Coalition offers help ranging from:

Finding the proper clothing
Getting to and from the new job
Keeping that job.

So far the program has helped find jobs in:

Telemarketing
Fast food
Office work
River barges.

The program has placed 30 people in jobs and as word-of-mouth has grown throughout the homeless community the pace has picked up recently, with nine people finding jobs in January.

Study: Carbon Benefits Outweigh Costs (If You Don’t Count End of Humanity…Maybe Even If You Do)

The report, titled “The Social Costs of Carbon? No, The Social Benefits Of Carbon,” highlights a forecasted decline in oil demand in the world’s energy market.

Economist Roger Bezdek is the lead author of a report that predicts that coal is on track to replace oil as the world’s main energy source. Bezdek is the founder and president of Management Information Services, Inc., a Washington, D.C.-based economic and energy research firm. He is also a former Director of Energy Research and Development Administration at the U.S. Department of Energy.

Graph included in “Social Costs of Carbon? No, Social Benefits of Carbon”

Bezdek’s report is a response to publications issued by the Environmental Protection Agency in 2010 and 2013 that have estimated the social costs of carbon.

The EPA says we needed to reduce carbon emissions in order to protect long term public health. Since burning coal and other fossil fuels emits carbon dioxide The Obama Administration and the EPA has been working to reduce emissions by creating tax incentives for fuel efficient vehicles, and enforcing regulations on coal fired power plants.

“They’re trying to use these estimated costs of carbon in proposed regulation and rulemaking,” Bezdek says. “There’s a federal law that says to do this you have to do a valid cost-benefit analysis.”

That’s exactly what this report sets out to do—determine the BENEFITS of carbon. His findings in a nutshell: the social benefits of carbon outweigh the EPA’s estimated costs by orders of magnitude from anywhere from 50 to 1, to 500 to 1.

“There are people at the EPA and also inside and outside the government who are obsessed with trying to reduce the use of fossil fuels, and reduce production of carbon dioxide as if this is going to cause some sort of huge economic and social, environmental disasters. That’s highly questionable," Bezdek says.

Bezdek’s study quotes one expert (Robert Pindyck) that go as far as saying current models that forecast social cost of carbon are “close to useless.” The report also says those models are, “completely ad hoc, with no theoretical or empirical foundation.”

In fact, there’s a section of the report that talks about the benefit of Carbon Dioxide in the biosphere. According to the report, CO2 has increased along with the global human population. Since plants grow better with more CO2, they are more apt to be able to nutritionally support that exploding population.

“There are some direct benefits of carbon dioxide. It assists in agricultural productivity and plant growth. But the overwhelming benefits come from the fossil fuels that generate carbon dioxide. Fossil fuels have created the modern world and sustain it in terms of technology, standard of living, economics, GDP, etcetera. And all the forecasts for the foreseeable future of the next several decades indicate that in excess of 80 percent of the world’s energy will continue to be supplied by fossil fuels," Bezdek says.

To reach his economic findings Bezdek’s team looked at the past, present, and projected future benefits of fossil fuel utilization. He says by 2030 world population is forecast to reach 8.3 billion, and thus an additional 1.3 billion people will require access to energy. And when it comes to supplying that energy, his report finds that coal will be leading the way.

“Fossil fuels are essential for a decent quality of life,” Bezdek says. “Try going back and living in the 15^th or 14^th centuries if you want to live without fossil fuel utilization—without the benefits of industrialization.”

“And those [electrical benefits] are exactly the kinds of things that people in the 3^rd world are desperate for to improve not only their standard of living, but their health and their well-being,” he adds.

Despite new advances in RENEWABLE energy technologies Bezdek estimates that transitioning away from fossil fuels just won’t be financially viable.

Takeaway

Bezdaz says that federal law prevents policy changes without a valid social costs/benefits analysis. And according to this report, the fossil-fuel path we’re on is good for everyone, since we’re all using fossil fuels already, and the benefits of that dependency are undeniable.

Bezdak says the caveat of his report is that it’s based on the given estimated social costs published by the EPA—estimations which he reiterates are based on limited data.

“These eminent analysts and economists and scientists have concluded that the estimates are essentially worthless for policy purposes,” Bezdek says.

Therefore, he says, instead of the benefits outweighing the costs of using fossil fuels such as coal 500-1, it may be more like 1000-1.

Meanwhile, the EPA also admits that their estimates are based on limited data and that they “do not currently include all of the important physical, ecological, and economic impacts of climate change recognized in the climate change literature because of a lack of precise information on the nature of damages.” As such they say it’s likely their approximations are underestimates.

Editor’s Note: West Virginia Public Broadcasting reached out to other economists, policy think-tanks, and professors of environmental science for a reaction to this report but, no response was given.