By Luanne McGovern, West Virginia Highlands Conservancy

What more can be said about the 87th West Virginia Legislative Session that has not already been said? It was a dismal and frustrating year … again. There were 2460 bills introduced and 249 passed – only 10% – the lowest percentage in many years. Perhaps, that is a good thing, as numerous bad bills died quiet deaths. 

Unfortunately, two bad bills did make it through the session. 

HB2233 will allow the removal of Category A drinking water protections from certain WV rivers and streams. In a land where everything flows downhill, this can only have negative consequences for the people of the state and their ability to access clean water. 

HB2014 Certified Microgrids Program is a truly frightening and overreaching piece of legislation. The bill allows the formation of certified microgrid districts, where independent entities can produce unlimited amounts of power, provided more than 70% of the power is used by data centers, and no more than 10% of the power is exported to the grid. The legislation prohibits: 

“Counties and municipalities, whether by ordinance, resolution, administrative act, or otherwise, from enacting, adopting, implementing, or enforcing ordinances, regulations, or rules which limit, in any way, the creation of, and acquisition, construction, equipping, development, expansion, and operation of any certified microgrid district or certified high impact data center project”. 

To add further insult to local governments, 70% of the property tax revenue from these huge multi-billion-dollar investments will revert to the state, primarily to offset revenue losses from lowering the state personal income tax. The potential long-term impacts of this bill on local communities and environments are difficult to imagine. Please see our other article on how Tucker County is fighting back against a microgrid/data center project. 

Numerous bills we were watching – and to which you responded with your advocacy – did not pass. These include revisions to the aboveground storage tank regulations (SB592), expansion of ORVs in state lands (SB711 and SB794), community air monitoring restrictions (SB575), the “Anti-Science” bills (SB599 and HB2493), timbering in public lands (SB224), the “Reliable Energy”, bill (SB505), restrictions on local control of water quality standards (SB940), advanced nuclear power (HB2205) and several bills to regulate forest carbon credits. 

The one bill we hoped would pass – SB801, Creating WV Public Waterway Access Act – would have required the WV Department of Transportation to consider including public access to waterways when building new bridges. It passed the Senate but was not taken up by the House. 

Thanks again for all your support and advocacy. It was a long 60 days, but we made it through. Governor Morrisey is threatening to have “several” special sessions this year, so take a deep breath and stay tuned!