Tag: Sen. Herb Snyder

W.Va. GOP Squashes Democrats Attempt to Stop Prevailing Wage repeal

In a close party-line vote, Republican state senators stymied a Democratic effort to stop a bill that would repeal the state’s prevailing wage. 

Democrats failed in a 16-18 Senate vote Thursday to reject the repeal bill, which passed a committee Tuesday.

Democrats said the bill was being wrongly fast-tracked and a compromise between labor and business should have been considered.

“This has been coming. There was plenty of time for compromise, but that compromise was not seen nor embraced,” Sen. Herb Snyder, a Democrat from Jefferson County, said on the floor Thursday.

“What we have done is put fear in the hearts of tens of thousands of West Virginia citizens. Our citizens, Mr. President. Their fear is that they do not know, if this repeal bill passes, what their wages will be.” 

Republicans say the free market should dictate wages. They expect amendments to come on the Senate floor.

The bill will be on first reading Friday and up for a vote as early as next week.

The House of Delegates has not considered yet the repeal.

Will Lawmakers Repeal the Unfair Trade Practices Act?

A debate that started during the 2014 legislative session continued during interim meetings in Charleston Sunday. State lawmakers are still questioning if a 1939 law affects today’s gas prices.

Jan Vineyard, president of the West Virginia Oil Marketers and Grocers Association or OMEGA, addressed lawmakers during a Joint Government Organization and Operations meeting in the House Chamber about the state’s Unfair Trade Practices Act which has been in state law for more than 70 years.

During the 2014 legislative session, Sen. Herb Snyder led a charge for repeal of that act, but his attempt failed. 

“The Unfair Trade Practices Act was created to maintain fair and healthy competition. The law was put into place in 1939 largely due to the practice of then chain grocer A&P Supermarkets,” Vineyard told lawmakers.

Vineyard says at the time the grocery chain A&P was moving into small towns in West Virginia and cutting their prices so low that the local mom and pop shops couldn’t compete.

Once they forced the competition out of business, A&P jacked up prices causing the state legislature to step in.

The act makes it illegal for a retailer to sell their product below cost and allows them to mark up their goods by up to 7 percent. Snyder said its that provision that’s allowing gasoline retailers to hike up their prices.

Vineyard, though, disagreed saying should the bill be repealed, locally owned gasoline retailers would be hurt along with the average West Virginian.

“By repealing the law, this would incent large out of state corporations, the haves who have the overwhelming advantage of volume purchasing, to lower their prices to drive local West Virginia operations out of business. Once that occurs, these large chains would have free reign to charge what they want, leaving the state’s residents, in this example the have nots, with potentially higher fuel costs yet and fewer choices and less access to gasoline and other products.”

Snyder was the former chair of the Senate Committee on Government Organization which looked at the law during interims. Sen. Craig Blair signed on as a co-sponsor of the repeal legislation in 2014 and will now chair the senate committee.

Senate Approves Bill for Frack Waste

Members of the state Senate unanimously passed a bill Friday allowing for the drill cuttings from natural gas fracking sites to be disposed of in county or privately owned landfills.

Currently, the drill cuttings can either be disposed of by burying them on site or deposited in landfills, but Senator Herb Snyder said landfills are the most environmentally friendly option.

The bill adds provisions that require the sites to monitor for heightened levels of radioactivity in the drill cuttings. It requires that landfills accepting the material separate it from any municipal waste and that a $1 fee be assessed for every ton.

Snyder said the first $750,000 of that fee will go toward conducting a scientific study of the materials themselves. Money collected after that mark, which Snyder expects to reach the millions, will go toward repairing roads in the drilling counties.

“Without this bill there are very little or no environmental regulations,” Snyder said. “There is no requirement for landfills to have these detectors at the gate.”

Counties that have a karst topography- meaning they have limestone- are prohibited from applying to accept waste.

The bill also says fracking filters which filter the water used on sites must be disposed of in an industrial landfill.
 

Senate Debates Bill on Unfair Trade Practices

Legislators stood Thursday to speak to legislation that has not yet made it to the floor. Senate Bill 368 was introduced by Senator Herb Snyder early in the session repealing unfair trade practices.

The bill focuses on a section of code written in the late 1930s. At the time, many states and the federal government put laws in place that prevented major retailers from undercutting the prices of mom and pop stores, forcing them out of business.

Since, Snyder said many gas retailers across the state have used that same decades old law to file lawsuits against companies who open shop in a new area and sell their fuel at significantly lower prices.

He said it’s that practice that is causing significant price increases in gas in the Eastern Panhandle, but members of the oil and gas lobby are protesting its consideration.
 

“You’re getting calls from those people I remind you that are in the oil marketing business. Every one of them. Mr. President, this bill is not about those people and whether they’re going to compete with each other as this bill will make it in the open and free market. Mr. President, this bill is about the 99.9% of West Virginians that aren’t making profits from the sale of gasoline and fuels. This bill is clearly about the citizens of West Virginia to give them the opportunity to buy the least expensive gas on the open market without artificial controls by law and it’s not a question of will they use Chapter 47-11-1A to inflate prices. They have.”  

Senator Sam Cann stood to question the bill, however, saying he’s not positive it’s the best way to help small businesses outside of the gas industry across the state.
 

“We always talk about small businesses in West Virginia and what do we do to help them? I believe that we have a lot of small businesses that could be harmed if we take this action. I worry about Ace Hardware in my neighborhood competing with Lowes and Home Depot. I worry about Food Fresh staying open when competing with Sam's. You know, the big box stores have the advantage on a volume basis and if this rule and this law stays in place and it helps a number of these small business, because I don’t believe it’s just about the oil marketers. I don’t believe it’s just about gasoline. I believe it’s about a lot of small mom and pop industries, little shops and stores that we need to make sure we’re not harming if we take this action.”  

That statement sparked comments from Senator Doug Facemire, a grocer who started his own chain in northern and central West Virginia.

Facemire said it’s impossible for the small owners to compete with big box stores like Wal Mart or Sams because of their buying power, but he believes Senators should be looking at what’s best for citizens.
 

“We owe it to the citizens of our state to open up a system where the real capitalist market takes place. We all complain about the fair and unfair trade rules that our country has to face when doing business across the seas. It’s the same thing today. The only thing this bill does is let the big boys bigger and the small people suffer because they will always have a better cost of goods. The way the bill is written, it really doesn’t offer protection and let’s stop and think who’s in here complaining. A lot of it’s the big guys. Thank you Mr. President.”  

Snyder’s bill is single referenced to Judiciary, but has yet to be put on the committee’s calendar.

http://youtu.be/qyVHVux58y4
 

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