E-Day Activities In State Capitol In Charleston

Invitation from WV Environmental Council, Charleston, 1/23/20

You are invited to attend E-Day at the Legislature on Tuesday, January 28 from 9 am to 2 pm at the West Virginia State Capitol.

Activists and other visitors will have the opportunity to engage in hands-on civic engagement during our day at the Legislature! Our informational tables will be set up in the Upper Senate Rotunda. You can discover the importance of civic engagement, take part in citizen lobbying, and learn about our member organizations, resources, and initiatives.

Join us for a press conference beginning at Noon to hear from our lobbyists, legislators, and Tracy Danzey. Tracy, our keynote speaker is environmental activist from Parkersburg, now residing in Jefferson County. Tracy contracted hip cancer at age 21 which resulted in loss of her leg from the hip down, attributed to C8 in her water sources growing up. She recently walked across Denmark in protest of Rockwool.

Our member groups participating include: Eastern Panhandle Sierra Club, Eastern Panhandle Green Coalition, Buckhannon River Watershed Association, Cheat Lake Environmental & Recreation Association (CLEAR), Citizens Climate Lobby West Virginia, Citizens for Clean Elections, Friends of Cheat River, Jefferson County Foundation, Mountain Lakes Preservation Alliance, Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, People Concerned About Chemical Safety, Sierra Club Student Coalition WVU, Solar United Neighbors, Sierra Club — WV Chapter, WV Citizen Action Group, WV Climate Action, WV Rivers Coalition, WV SORO, WV League of Women Voters.

Don’t miss this unique opportunity to learn more about the West Virginia Environmental Council & our involvement at the Legislature.

After E-Day, head on over the the Empty Glass for our GREEN JAM to further support the E-Council. it’s from 5-9 pm.

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See also: WV Environmental Council, GREEN Digest, Volume 30 Issue 2, 1/17/20

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Science journalist to talk radioactivity in Ohio Valley oil & gas industry

News Report by Brittany Grego, WTOV News 9, January 23, 2020

BELMONT COUNTY, Ohio — Barnesville resident Jill Hunkler has been working with a writer from Rolling Stone Magazine.
Science Journalist Justin Nobel will be coming to Belmont County Friday, Jan. 24, to talk about a recent article he wrote on radioactivity and the oil and gas industry in the area.

“These are very serious issues, Justin has found in government documents and early industry reports that link oil and gas to radioactive exposures and also court cases that involve oil and gas industry cancer deaths have been linked to radioactivity on the job,” said Hunkler.

The event will take place this Friday from 5:30 to 7:30 PM inside Ohio University Eastern’s Shannon Hall Theatre.

Anyone is welcome to attend.

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2020 Barbara Danko Political Forum, Sunday, Chatham University

14th Ward Independent Democratic Club and the Chatham University College Democrats to hold the 2020 Barbara Daly Danko Political Forum:

“The Petrochemical Build-Out: Not What It’s Cracked Up To Be?”

Sunday, January 26, 2020, Doors Open 1:00 P.M, Forum 1:30 P.M.,

Eddy Theatre, Chatham University, Woodland Rd., Pittsburgh 15232

FREE TO THE PUBLIC

E-DAY in Charleston The 23rd annual E-Day, organized by the West Virginia Environmental Council (WVEC), brought together 25 environmental groups and sustainable businesses at the Capitol on Wednesday of this week.  The theme for this E-Day was “One WV – Justice for All”.  You can read further about this successful event in Denise Poole’s report on the WVEC website.

FUTURE FUND GETS BOOST Wyoming Governor Mike Sullivan delivered a talk to lawmakers on Tuesday.  He described the success of Wyoming’s Permanent Mineral Trust Fund, a state fund built upon severance taxes on extracted resources.  In July 2011, the farsighted West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy recommended that West Virginia adopt this strategy for providing for investment in economic diversification after the shale boom and bust cycle has played out (see this earlier post).  The idea was further described in the recently released report by the Center entitled Creating an Economic Diversification Fund. WV currently has a 5% severance tax.  The Center endorsed a 1 percent increase in the severance tax on coal and natural gas which, if implemented, would generate a projected $5.8 billion in revenue over the next quarter century.

On Feb. 5th, the Charleston Gazette resoundingly supported the recommendation of the Center in an editorial.  Following are snippets from that column, Minerals:create a nest egg.

Alaska, Montana, Wyoming, New Mexico, North Dakota and Utah have had severance tax trust funds since the early 1970s, says Ted Boettner, executive director of the Center on Budget and Policy and one of the authors of the report….

It is amazing that West Virginia has not created such a fund already.

This state needs more economic development, and has an underdeveloped workforce and an aging population. It also has high rates of disability and disease and a small tax base — the fewest number of taxpayers making more than $200,000 a year in America.

If the Marcellus gas boom proves to be as great as everyone hopes, then a fraction of that wealth should flow to the people of West Virginia. As West Virginians know from long experience, booms may be followed by busts. How much smarter to learn from the past and devise a method to smooth out the roughest swings in that inevitable cycle.

However, WV Governor Earl Ray Tomblin has gone on record as being unsupportive of an increase in the severance tax.  Ken Ward, who has been closely following this issue, reported in the Feb. 2nd Gazette:

“Right now, I think that our severance tax is sufficient,” the governor said in a brief interview after a speech to the West Virginia Coal Association’s annual mining symposium in Charleston.

Senate President Jeff Kessler (D-Marshall) has introduced a bill to institute a Future Fund similar to Wyoming’s fund and funded by severance taxes on natural gas, but it relies upon directing a portion of current severance taxes to a fund without raising the severance tax rate as the Center has recommended in it’s report.

Here’s Ken Ward’s story on Feb. 7 regarding the Wyoming governor’s visit.  Also worth reading is Ward’s Jan. 31 commentary on the Center’s proposal for a mineral trust fund in The Coal Tattoo blog.  That post is entitled Will W. Va. prepare for a post-coal future?