West Virginia’s top legislative leaders don’t think clamoring over coal this election helps Appalachia’s already-sputtering industry.
A U.S. Senate race and two competitive House contests have hammered on fear of federal regulation further stifling coal.
Republicans lump Democrats in with President Obama, an ever-unpopular figure in West Virginia. Democrats zig-zag to show they don’t support his energy policies.
State House Speaker Tim Miley and Senate President Jeff Kessler say the dialogue is oversimplified.
The Democratic leaders point out other factors: cheap natural gas, thin coal seams, lousy markets and national and global competition.
Kessler and Miley are also from northern West Virginia, where natural gas production has boomed.
Some of West Virginia’s longest-tenured Democratic politicians, the late Sen. Robert Byrd and Sen. Jay Rockefeller, similarly criticized coal rhetoric.
Kessler told the Parkersburg News and Sentinel Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin should have called a special session instead of proposing the rule. Kessler wanted lawmakers to pass a one-year delay of the Jan. 2015 initial inspection deadline.
The administration’s rule eases inspections for tanks that don’t hold hazardous materials, contain less than 50,000 gallons or aren’t near water supplies. It loosens requirements for tanks holding water and food products like milk. It doesn’t change deadlines.
Tomblin spokesman Chris Stadelman said lawmakers will review rules in the session starting in January.
The law reacts to a January chemical spill that contaminated 300,000 people’s tap water for days.
Senate President Jeff Kessler has announced his appointment to a statewide panel that will focus on the quality of public water systems in West Virginia.
Kessler announced in a press release the appointment of Kanawha- Charleston Health Department Executive Director Dr. Rahul Gupta to the panel. Gupta will serve as a non-voting member.
The Public Water System Supply Study Committee was created under Senate Bill 373, the bill passed by lawmakers earlier this year to regulate above ground storage tanks and protect the state’s drinking water supply. The bill was a result of the January chemical leak in Charleston that left 300,000 people without water for as many as 10 days.
The commission is charged with studying the effectiveness of that bill as well as providing suggestions on how to improve the infrastructure of current water systems across the state. The 12 commission members will then report their findings to the Joint Committee on Government and Finance on or before December 15 each year.
State House and Senate leaders are urging the governor to call a special session to delay part of an aboveground storage tank law.
House Speaker Tim Miley and Senate President Jeff Kessler asked Gov. Tomblin to call the session during next month’s interim meetings. They’re slated for Sept. 8-10.
Tomblin spokesman Chris Stadelman acknowledged a special session may be best to address the situation, but didn’t commit to one. He said Tomblin’s staff and environmental agency are working with stakeholders on a solution.
Miley and Kessler said the Jan. 1 deadline for tank inspections in the law is unattainable.
Miley has said tank requirements would overly burden small oil and gas operators.
Child and family advocates are not giving up their fight to restore more than $800,000 in funding cut from service programs across the state. A vigil, spearheaded by the Our Children, Our Future campaign, took to the State Capitol Tuesday morning to have their message heard.
Executive Director for the Healthy Kids and Families Coalition Stephen Smith stood in the lower rotunda of the Capitol surround by fellow social service advocates holding signs. Some contained countless purple ribbons representing families expected to lose services if the cuts aren’t restored, others with 80 pink slips representing the number of jobs expected to be lost.
“We want commitments from our legislators and from that the state that we’ll never be in this position again,” Smith said.
The cuts came as part of a line item veto by the governor in March. Of the approximately $1 million cut, Gov. Tomblin has since restored about $200,000, but advocates and even some lawmakers say that’s not enough, including Senate President Jeff Kessler.
“I don’t anticipate these cuts are going to be restored before we leave this week, but my message to you is don’t give up on our children and I pledge to you I have not, I will not,” Kessler said.
Credit Ashton Marra / West Virginia Public Broadcasting
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West Virginia Public Broadcasting
Senate President Jeff Kessler at Tuesday’s rally.
Kessler said if these groups want to see the change in funding, they have to make a commitment to educate the governor and his staff about what they do, that the services they provide are not duplicative.
House Speaker Tim Miley didn’t attend the vigil, but joined Kessler in his backing of the services.
“If these services aren’t being provided than what services are? How does intervention occur if not through these services?” Miley said Tuesday.
But Miley said for the administration, it’s not a question of are these programs important, it’s a question of being able to afford them in an incredibly tight budget year.
“The governor’s fiscally conservative which is not a bad thing, but when you have to make cuts, do you make them generally across the board or make some additional or greater cuts in certain areas and less in others? So, the governor with his line item veto chose to make cuts to these programs as well as cuts across the board in many others and his position, at least as its been explained to me, is that if he starts opening the door to restore some of the cuts to the line item veto, it creates a slippery slope to then decide: are the other cuts to these other programs not worthy of restoration?”
Two hundred supporters met with their senators and delegates at the Capitol following the vigil, asking their lawmakers to commit to restoring the funds by July and to finding a more stable source of funding for the future.
Democratic legislative leaders won’t back Attorney General Patrick Morrisey’s call for more audits of the West Virginia Legislature, state office holders and agencies.
The Republican attorney general is urging lawmakers to institute additional audits amid controversy over a $5 million state Department of Agriculture loan program. The U.S. Attorney’s Office is investigating the program’s alleged mismanagement of money.
Democratic Senate President Jeff Kessler and House Speaker Tim Miley questioned the need for more audits.
Miley also has targeted Morrisey for ties to two drug companies that his office is suing. Morrisey said he recused himself from the cases because his companies are his wife’s lobbying clients. The lawsuits stem from the last attorney general.
Miley is calling for stronger conflict of interest laws as a result.
