Seven steps to fight for WV that you must take NOW. Ignore the wave of populist anger at your peril.
WV #WokeAF and Angry
Country roads: fund them
Understand, freight trucks do about 99% of non-weather-related damage. And they only pay for an average of 35% of maintenance costs. In fact, "One fully loaded 18-wheeler does the same damage to a road as 9600 cars." So nearly all of the road damage is being caused by corporations shipping goods over roads that we are paying for.
Salting the Earth in WV
A study of frack water's effect on WV forests ended tragically: "Forest Service researchers sprayed more than 80,000 gallons of fracking fluid on a half-acre area of hardwood trees in the Fernow Experimental Forest, a plot within the Monongahela Forest in West Virginia. They immediately observed 'severe damage and mortality of ground vegetation' and, 10 days later, premature leaf drop. Two years after spraying, 56 percent of the large trees were dead."
WV- Still Ours
We know that in McDowell county, for example, residents are literally paying those socialized costs with their lives. Profits are private. The average life expectancy there, due to coal extraction, is far lower than average. Each of them are paying an average of a decade or more. Wealth pours up; it doesn't trickle down. Extraction execs pocket their sacrifice in the form of profit.
Top 4 Questionable WV Politicians
4. The WV DEP. This is not a politician, of course, but I’ll call out the secretary who directs the department. By not taking part in the court actions against Jim Justice mines, it looks as if the WV DEP is responding to behind-the-scenes pressure. WV DEP Secretary Randy Huffman has already stated that he can’t do a good job of protecting people here in Ritchie and Doddridge...
To Catch the Conscience of King Coal
Ken Ward: "The questions that need asked in the wake of this deal between EPA and Jim Justice are less about whether Justice got special treatment, but whether really the entire mining industry gets special treatment — whether we should accept hundreds (or even thousands) of environmental and workplace safety violations as just the cost of doing business. And not for nothing, but we should also be asking questions about exactly how candidates who proclaim that they would end this way of doing business would do so — and political skills to build the sort of support doing so would require, given the state’s and the Legislature’s overall politics. Changing the way we interact with coal companies, or natural gas operators for that matter, isn’t something that can be done with the wave of some magic wand."
The Jim Justice Coal Con
See this for what it is: the robber barons are trying to pocket as much as they can, now. Jim Justice is using this "pledge" as his tool. Resource barons don't want to be responsible for the costs associated with their industries. They want US to pay, no matter the cost.
4 types of politicians opposing cannabis
Cannabis legalization has failed in WV under the leadership of both parties. Cannabis is NOT an issue of party, here. Who opposes legalization, then? Four types of politicians support cannabis prohibition... 1....
The Party of Dirty Tricks
Which is the party of dirty tricks here in WV? Both, sadly. But the latest example comes from my own party, via WV State Democratic Party chair Belinda Biafore.
Ken Ward on the Antero Project
Ken Ward writes: "When lawmakers passed and Tomblin signed a 2011 law aimed at better regulating oil and gas drilling, they weakened some provisions of it that would have provided more protections for residents near gas production operations. State officials said they would study those issues and could come back to them later. The studies were done, and recommended more protections, but the law hasn’t been updated based on the findings... "
The Appalachian Oracle 