To rebuild our economy after the covid-19 pandemic and to prevent a far worse public disaster looming in our climate crisis - we need:
1. To create businesses meeting human needs like energy efficiency and solar power.
2. Empower workers through unions.
3. Prioritize policies where workers, entrepreneurs, and investors are focused on creating a better world not maximizing profits.
Everyone wants pure water, clean air and safe food. The EPA should strengthen those protections. When DuPont put C-8 in the water the EPA should have protected us. Nordic countries have shown strong protections can go with a strong economy. There is no need to allow toxins in our food and water in the name of economic growth.
Working together to create good work and dynamic, problem solving communities, many of our kids will stay in state and more people will be drawn here. For example, revitalizing local food production, universal broadband access, building with local materials, creation of worker owned businesses and support for small local business - not giving tax breaks to out of state corporations.
Our Plan*
Train our kids for the diverse, sustainable energy jobs of the future, and equip them to continue West Virginia’s position as an energy-producing state.
*Taken from West Virginia Can't Wait, including my own contributions as part of the WVCW network.
1. To create businesses meeting human needs like energy efficiency and solar power.
2. Empower workers through unions.
3. Prioritize policies where workers, entrepreneurs, and investors are focused on creating a better world not maximizing profits.
Everyone wants pure water, clean air and safe food. The EPA should strengthen those protections. When DuPont put C-8 in the water the EPA should have protected us. Nordic countries have shown strong protections can go with a strong economy. There is no need to allow toxins in our food and water in the name of economic growth.
Working together to create good work and dynamic, problem solving communities, many of our kids will stay in state and more people will be drawn here. For example, revitalizing local food production, universal broadband access, building with local materials, creation of worker owned businesses and support for small local business - not giving tax breaks to out of state corporations.
Our Plan*
Train our kids for the diverse, sustainable energy jobs of the future, and equip them to continue West Virginia’s position as an energy-producing state.
- Aim to make every school in West Virginia a “West Virginia Sustainable School” within 10 years by developing and executing a plan for energy efficiency. Similar efforts have already saved tens of millions of dollars in Marshall County.
- Establish a Taxpayers Council on Climate Action and, with jobs promises for laid-off-miners and gas workers, set a clear plan to reach carbon neutrality no later than 2050--using the policies outlined above as a starting point. This group will also work with the Inspector General to examine the long-term costs of environmental degradation when evaluating policy and economic development opportunities. We owe it to our children to be a leader on this issue.
- Reduce long-term energy costs to consumers by making every effort to put (or keep) public utilities in public hands.
- Legalize Power Purchasing Agreements (PPAs), so that West Virginians can benefit from our energy generating resources. A PPA is a contract between a third party developer and a landowner, which allows the developer to install, operate and own the energy generation facility while the landowner purchases electricity at a lower price from the same facility. West Virginia is one of only a handful of states that explicitly forbids third-party ownership of electricity generating facilities. Allowing PPAs would result in an increase in solar generation in West Virginia, leading to customer savings and creating solar installation jobs.
- Allow small producers to sell electric power
- Appoint new members to the Environmental Quality Board (EQB) and the Public Service Commission (PSC) who value environmental justice and low income utility users, and who will place the needs of our communities over the greed of out-of-state millionaires, as terms for current board members end.
- Make advocates available to help citizens appeal permits that affect them and their communities.
- Assure the appeals process is available to poor people--it is currently costly and complex.
- Work with the political corruption division of the state police to ensure the “quasi judicial” EQB board is not simply doing the bidding of industry. “Quasi-judicial” should not mean “quasi-justice.”
- Start a process to reform and reimagine the utility business model. Forward-thinking policy makers have embarked on this path, notably New York’s Reforming the Energy Vision (NY-REV) process. The West Virginia Public Service Commission will initiate such a process and coordinate with other state government agencies to shift utilities toward more efficient models that are better suited to serve rural communities instead of exploiting them for profit.
*Taken from West Virginia Can't Wait, including my own contributions as part of the WVCW network.