Governor Commits Taxpayer $$$ to Questionable Coal-to-Liquids Scheme

Governor Manchin has committed large sums of WV taxpayer dollars to fund the nation’s first modern coal-to-liquids plant near Wheeling.

Both presidential candidates have pledged to regulate carbon emissions. When this happens, a coal-to-liquids plant could lose enormous amounts of money. Investors have been running from coal liquefaction plants like pigs from the slaughter. So who will help pay for this financially risky venture in West Virginia? We the taxpayers.

According to the Charleston Gazette (August 12): "The Manchin administration has agreed to give nearly $200 million in tax breaks and other incentives to developers of a coal-to-liquids plant proposed for Marshall County… That’s about $3.3 million in government incentives for each of the 60 jobs the facility would provide."

OVEC member Mary Wildfire has written letters-to-the-editor pointing out reasons why coal-to-liquids is a bad idea: "The most important of these is that this process produces twice as much carbon dioxide, the primary greenhouse gas causing global warming, as the petroleum it replaces. It’s extremely irresponsible to ignore the global warming impacts just because the worst effects will happen in decades, not immediately. Some scientists are saying that we must reverse course within a very few years or face a planet that doesn’t support much human life, or at the least, a severely impoverished world with excesses of rainfall in some places and great droughts in others, coastal cities drowned, a surge in disease, floods of refugees, and decline in harvests causing massive starvation."

Breathtaking advances are being made in renewable energies and in energy efficiency. Wouldn’t you rather see your tax dollars spent on energy solutions for the future?