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State Opens New Trade Office With Taiwan

A trade delegation of state leaders is in Taiwan for a ribbon cutting of a new West Virginia Taiwan Office at the Taipei World Trade Center.

According to a press release from the state Senate Communications Office, the trade office will serve as a hub for promoting West Virginia as a prime location for Taiwanese investment and assisting West Virginia businesses with exporting their products and services to Taiwan. As more companies in Taiwan seek to expand their global footprint, the West Virginia Taiwan Office will make the state more competitive in its mission to attract those new investment opportunities.

During Thursday’s ribbon cutting ceremony, Senate President Craig Blair, R-Berkeley, pledged to build a long-term relationship with Taiwan and that this new office would be a strong platform to foster that growth.

“When I first visited Taiwan in 2018, I knew that it was a special place, and I began working on ways we could set up a West Virginia trade office here,” Blair said. “The people of Taiwan are exactly like the great people of West Virginia. They’re both family oriented, industrious, innovative, and extremely warm, caring and welcoming. In fact, the song ‘Take Me Home, Country Roads’ is as popular in Taiwan as it is in West Virginia. Everyone knows the words regardless of the language barrier.”

APG Polytech, owned by Taipei based, Far Eastern New Century Corporation, is already in Mason County. The company produces polymer resin for manufacturing companies.

Blair said this week’s trade mission has opened even more doors and led to more discussions for future investment.

House Speaker Roger Hanshaw, R-Clay, agreed, and said he is eager to see West Virginia’s relationship with Taiwan continue to strengthen.

“We’ve all learned that even though we can do just about anything virtually, there’s still something special about a handshake and a face-to-face conversation,” Hanshaw said. “Our relationship with our friends here in Taiwan is special, and I’m excited West Virginia will be on the ground here to actively recruit companies that would be a great fit for the economy we’ve been building here in the Mountain State. I appreciate the work our Department of Economic Development has put in here already and I’m eager to see how that continues even after we leave here this week.”

Also attending on behalf of the West Virginia Legislature were Senate Majority Whip Ryan Weld, R-Brooke, Senate Minority Whip Robert Plymale, D-Wayne; and Delegates Wayne Clark, R-Jefferson; Paul Espinosa, R-Jefferson; Daniel Linville, R-Cabell; and Kayla Young, D-Kanawha.

The Chinese Communist Party has ramped up provocative moves against the island following high profile meetings with former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and current U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

Despite bilateral relations with Taiwan, the U.S. does not have a formal diplomatic relationship with the island, which China considers is part of its sovereign territory.

While Taiwan still dominates the world’s chip industry, producing over 60% of the world’s semiconductors, the country has faced recent resistance on the part of some U.S. investors over the lack of a formal tax treaty between the two countries.

Taiwan’s gross domestic product (GDP) shrank by 3 percent during the first quarter of 2023 and the country’s economy has slipped into recession.

Slowing global demand for semiconductors is blamed for the country’s poor economic performance.

State Leaders Promote W.Va. On ‘ChooseWV’ Tours

The ChooseWV program tells West Virginia’s story directly to those who can make a major job and industry impact.

A group of state legislative and education leaders will soon embark on another national economic development tour. The ChooseWV program tells West Virginia’s story directly to those who can make a major job and industry impact.

Last summer, West Virginia University President Gordon Gee, Marshall University President Brad Smith, Speaker of the House of Delegates Roger Hanshaw joined university and legislative staff for the first of three ChooseWV economic development tours. Hanshaw said the very first stop, in California’s Silicon Valley, proved that face-to-face promotion can be fruitful.

“On our very first visit we pitched West Virginia and the benefits of locating an office facility in West Virginia, to a little over $1 trillion worth of market capitalization that day,” Hanshaw said. “That’s a trillion with a “T”; a little over a trillion dollars’ worth of companies were in the room that day and some of those are already beginning to bear fruit now. We’re receiving calls from companies that were in the room that day talking about whether West Virginia is a convenient and suitable place for them to, for example, place back-office operations on the East Coast.”

Other stops on previous tours included New York City and Washington, D.C. The 2023 spring and summer ChooseWV ventures include meeting with CEOs, investment bankers, trade ambassadors and alumni. Stops range from Boston to Seattle and Los Angeles. Gee said he’s along to show West Virginia has a committed educational system.

“We want to hear from employers and those who may locate here about what we can do to make it very easy for them,” Gee said. “Tell us what you need to have. If you need to have 40 engineers, then we’ll train those engineers. If you need to have 25 physicians, we will train those physicians. If you need to have 40 school teachers, that’s what we’ll do.”

Hanshaw said the ChooseWV visits stemmed, in part, from a crash course in economic development when the Fortune 200 steelmaker Nucor, selected Mason County for a multi-billion dollar plant. He also said recruiting lessons learned during the pandemic showed the new wave of remote workers don’t need to be tied to a big city desk.

“I don’t know about you, but I’ve been to New York and Chicago and Houston and Los Angeles and Miami and I like it right here in West Virginia a lot better,” he said. “As it turns out, so do a lot of the remote workers. The ASCEND program that President Smith funded, and that we’re orchestrating in collaboration with WVU and Marshall now has been oversubscribed in every round so far. In fact, it’s oversubscribed again this year, as I understand it. We have people who are wanting to come here to be remote workers. Now we need remote jobs here for them to do. That’s part of what the program is about. It’s about making sure that people who may not be thinking about West Virginia are doing so.”

Gee said the state’s educational system is primed to enhance recruitment for companies geared toward renewable energy as a driver or product

“We’ve been in the energy business a long time, we have all these very highly skilled machinists and others in the southern part of the state,” Gee said. “People who immediately can turn around and start doing work on a re-trained basis for any industry who wants to come here. It requires an educated population, to be able to create the functioning activities that surround energy, whether it be in the coal, oil, gas area, or in the renewable area. These all require a lot of educated and skilled people, and that’s what our job is, it’s not just simply the university. When we talk about education, we talk about pre-k through life, our skilled trade folks, the people out of the technical programs at the technical schools, community colleges, we’re all into this.”

Hanshaw said West Virginia’s now all-encompassing energy profile is trending toward the power of the future.

“Our economy is going to reach a point in my lifetime, and I hope it’s sooner than later, in which our fossil resources become too valuable to burn,” Hanshaw said. “A time when we need to use them as downstream manufacturing feedstocks and the raw materials for other higher end processes and that’s some of what we’re seeing. We’re seeing people in the chemical industry, the petrochemical industry, take a second look at West Virginia in the way that they used to take a first look at West Virginia when the petrochemical industry was being born right here in the Kanawha Valley. It’s circling back around to those days again.”

ChooseWV’s 2023 spring and summer tours happen in mid-May and late June. Hanshaw said he hopes to exceed that $1 trillion worth of market capitalization.

House Leadership Discusses 2023 Priorities

Economic development and education are two issues that loom large as legislators prepare for the 2023 general session. Leaders in the House of Delegates from both parties have different views on the varied priority issues that need to be addressed.

Speaker of the House Roger Hanshaw, R-Clay, said after landing Nucor’s Mason County steel plant and Berkshire Hathaway’s Ravenswood renewable energy industrial park, West Virginia must prioritize site development beyond simply having a big flat piece of land.

“It also means having adequate utilities, having adequate ingress and egress,” Hanshaw said. “We now know that the pressure to power your business on non-fossil, non-carbon energy sources is growing. It’s not just growing in West Virginia, it’s growing, certainly nationally, if not globally.”

House Minority Leader Doug Skaff, D-Kanawha, said his caucus is focused in 2023 on West Virginia’s existing businesses, especially small businesses. He said the majority of the state’s employed people right now work in small businesses with 50 employees or less.

“What can we do to help them? Are there payroll taxes we can forgive? Are there incentives for them to grow? Maybe we can’t afford to do a business inventory tax across the board for everybody,” Skaff said. “If you’ve been a business here for X amount of years, and you’re looking to expand, and you’re going to hire new people, maybe look at individual sectors of the market that we can help really grow.”

For public education, Hanshaw said the state needs to continue a course of action that provides adequate funding. The overall picture includes the refreshed educational structure demonstrated by Senate President Craig Blair’s education leadership changes, a legislative focus on non-traditional educational opportunities and acceptance of the Hope Scholarship program.

As demonstrated in the recently completed interim legislative session, Hanshaw said he will again push for his bill that funds first and second grade teacher aides. He said the program helps develop skill sets early on for the jobs and economy of the future.

“Training a workforce is an absolute imperative, we have to do it, it’s not an option,” Hanshaw said. “Making sure that the kids are able to read and do math at grade level is critical. I intend to put that bill back before the legislature again, come January.”

Skaff said the state can’t realize educational progress without a plan to recruit and retain teachers who are leaving in crisis numbers for better paying jobs elsewhere. He included teachers and nurses in a revamped tax incentive proposal.

“Why not instead of just doing across the board income tax reduction for everybody, how about no income tax, if you’re a nurse, or if you’re a teacher?” Skaff said. “Let’s look at ways that we can forgive their loans. If you become a nurse and you stay in West Virginia and practice for five years or X amount of years back. If you’re a teacher, you can go across the state line and make $10,000 more. What can we do to help offset that, maybe on the back end to incentivize them to stay in West Virginia or become a teacher here?”

Hanshaw said Republicans are looking at ways to re-regulate and rejuvenate the state’s forestry industry and manufacture more wood products in West Virginia. And, he said there is a dire need locally and globally to continue offering incentives for rare earth mineral extraction and production here in West Virginia.

“Today we rely on the Chinese for almost all of our sources of those materials,” Hanshaw said. “That’s a terrible situation for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is just straight up national security.”

Skaff said Democrats also want to focus on ensuring cost of living adjustments for state employees, retirees and workforce individuals in need.

“We need to just do a sliding scale, maybe every five years with an automatic trigger that gives the cost of living adjustment to retirees and public employees and teachers who are on a fixed income,” Skaff said. “People who have put their heart and soul into giving back to West Virginia, but yet they continue to earn the same and the price of everything as you know keeps going up.”

House and Senate leaders from both parties will caucus on Sunday, Dec. 4, and are expected to name leaders and committee chairs, vice-chairs and members.

Broadband Expansion Passes in House

Thirty percent of West Virginians do not have access to basic broadband services as defined by federal law, according to the Federal Communications Commission.

When you look at just the rural parts of West Virginia, that percent increases to 48.

House Bill 3093 aims to change that.

One of the biggest parts of the bill is it allows communities to form ‘internet co-opts.” These ‘co-opts,’ or cooperatives, would work together with a service provider to become their community’s own provider – thus reaching areas that may not have access to broadband.

Republican Delegate Roger Hanshaw of Clay County is the bill’s lead sponsor. While the bill has seen wide bi-partisan support, those who have voiced some concerns over the bill have mainly been internet service providers, which Hanshaw addressed in his floor speech.

“This is a bill that’s intended to promote competition, there’s no doubt about that,” Hanshaw noted, “but it’s a bill intended to do so in places where competition doesn’t exist. The formation of cooperatives; the formation of cooperatives is intended to happen and will happen in places where there is not service. People who are receiving service now have no motivation to avail themselves of this process and are unlikely to do so.”

Only one other delegate spoke to the bill on the floor today. It passed 97 to 2 and now heads to the Senate for further consideration.

House Bill Creates Broadband 'Co-Opts' in W.Va. Communities

In the House Friday, the House Judiciary Committee took its first look at a bill to expand broadband internet access in the state. The bill’s goal is for all West Virginians to have access by 2020.

According to the Federal Communications Commission, 30 percent of West Virginians do not have access to basic broadband services as defined by federal law. When you look at just the rural parts of the state that percentage increases to 48.

House Bill 3093, which was taken up in the chamber’s Judiciary Committee Friday morning, seeks to expand access to underserved areas in the state.

The bill itself is 33 pages long. It allows communities to form “internet co-opts,” which lead sponsor of the bill Delegate Roger Hanshaw explains are groups of citizens who live in certain geographic areas. The groups can work together to become their own internet service provider.

“If a provider isn’t coming into their area with service that’s of high enough quality to suit their needs,” Hanshaw said, “they can get together to work with the provider and become their own provider there in that small community.”

Hanshaw, who is from rural Clay County, says this was one of the biggest barriers he and his colleagues found as they began working on this bill a year ago. He says the bill also addresses some smaller barriers, too, like dealing with micro-trenching, which is the official term for a simple process—the laying of pipes with internet fibers inside them alongside any new highway construction in the state.

Hanshaw says the bill is comprehensive but with a straightforward approach.

“It’s just simply meant to remove barriers to service,” he explained, “So our objective in adopting this bill, if we ultimately get it passed both houses is just to remove several barriers all at once to expansion of service, and in doing so, hopefully remove that great big barrier.”

Hanshaw says the bill wouldn’t use any state dollars, and it gives communities the authority to get it started.

“There’s nothing compulsory about this bill,” he noted, “This is all a permissive bill; it lets people do things; that’s the objective. So this is a revenue neutral bill. This bill doesn’t require any expenditure of state funds. So how quickly the bill causes service to expand is largely going to be driven by how quickly people want it to happen.”

The bill also creates a Broadband Enhancement Council, which is made up of thirteen voting members including the Secretary of Commerce and the State Superintendent of Schools. The council is housed in the Department of Commerce and is tasked with providing administrative, personnel, and technical support services to the communities that seek broadband expansion on their own.

The bill also establishes a Broadband Enhancement Fund, which will hold any donations or appropriations the Council receives for their projects.

Hanshaw says this bill is an important frontier for West Virginia.

“The interstate highway system, when it was built, after President Eisenhower’s term opened up the country to an entirely new form of commerce. The broadband – access to adequate broadband service, is this generation’s equivalent to the interstate highway system.”

After an hour of questions and discussion in committee, House Judiciary passed House Bill 3093 without debate. It now heads to the full chamber and will likely see a vote next week.

2017 Session So Far Lacking Broadband Expansion Bills

Lawmakers are 14 days into this legislative session and so far, not a single bill dealing with broadband expansion has been introduced. The issue received attention early last session, but lawmakers say they’re still working on a plan to reach both unserved and underserved areas of West Virginia.

Thirty percent of West Virginians do not have access to basic broadband service under federal definitions. When you look at just the rural parts of the state, that percentage increases to 48, according the Federal Communications Commission.

The lack of access poses a problem for many West Virginians on a daily basis.

“My family owns a hardware store in the municipality of Clay and there are often times in which we can’t process a credit card because connectivity is so poor,” Del. Roger Hanshaw, a Republican from Clay County, said Tuesday.

“A credit card.”

So far this session, no member of the Legislature has introduced a bill to take on the lack of access, but Hanshaw said those talks are underway in his chamber.

“All over the Capitol right now, we have representatives of all of the companies who provide internet access in West Virginia having almost daily meetings about just what kind of help the state can offer,” he said.

But exactly what that help looks like hasn’t been determined.

During the 2016 Legislative Session, then-Republican Senator Chris Walters championed a bill to create a government-owned broadband network, using a bond to pay for its construction. The bill made it through his chamber, but members in both bodies had concerns about the government interfering in private business.

That included now-Senate President Mitch Carmichael who works for Frontier, one of the largest internet providers in the state.

Advocacy groups have started pushing lawmakers to take action this year, including the AARP.

State Director Gaylene Miller released the group’s legislative priorities today and broadband is near the top of the list. This year, AARP is teaming up with Generation West Virginia, a group that advocates for millennial issues, to get a bill passed.

“The issue is so important that you have all the generations, from AARP to Generation West Virginia coming together to say, ‘hey look, let’s shine a light on the issue.’ Let’s see what we can do together to move the state forward,” she said.

Senate Majority Leader Ryan Ferns Tuesday on the Senate floor.

This year, Senate Majority Leader Ryan Ferns said proposals will likely come in the form of two pieces of legislation, at least in the Senate.

One would incentivize private expansion into areas that currently don’t have access with tax credits; the other would provide government-backed loans to internet companies to upgrade access in underserved areas, or areas with slow internet speeds.

Democratic Sen. Mike Woelfel opposed the government-owned network proposed in 2016 and said this year, he’d likely support tax credits for businesses, but still doesn’t think they will make much difference.

“Tax credits can be a useful tool, but the free market is going to drive this and there are so many parts of this state that don’t even have a water line to their house,” he said. “I don’t know how we can justify subsidizing broadband access to those folks when we can’t even get them water.”

But Woelfel and his colleagues on both sides of the aisle do agree that the lack of connectivity is impeding business expansion.

“If we’re going to talk about small businesses in West Virginia growing and doing new things and talking about a new economy, we have to give them the tools to do that,” Del. Hanshaw said, “and one of those is being able to sell products to people who aren’t in your backyard.”

In 2015, the FCC reclassified broadband access as a public utility, blocking industry practices that allowed certain companies to pay to have their websites respond more quickly for consumers.

The reclassification was eventually backed by federal courts, but many lawmakers in West Virginia—lawmakers in both parties—don’t think broadband should be treated as an essential service rather than a luxury.

Sen. Mike Woelfel on the Senate floor Tuesday.

Still, Sen. Woelfel believes it’s an expensive proposition for the state no matter how the Legislature decides to incentivize expansion.

“To take it to that final mile or the last mile to someone’s house or someone’s business is going to be, just due to our topography, going to be an economic burden that the private sector is not likely to take on,” he said.

Del. Hanshaw expects a broadband expansion bill to be introduced in his chamber by the end of the week.