Bluefield Daily Telegraph. July 16, 2022.
Editorial: Tax bill: W.Va. voters will decide amendment
You may have heard that lawmakers in West Virginia are looking at eliminating the state’s personal property tax on vehicles, boats and trailers — a move that would likely be popular with Mountain State voters.
As it turns out, lawmakers are placing the issue on the upcoming November ballot. Amendment One, or the Property Tax Modernization Amendment, will ask voters to decide if the personal property tax, as well as the state’s business equipment and inventory tax, should be eliminated. If the measure passes, which is likely given the fact that most people don’t enjoy paying taxes on personal property, lawmakers would then presumably act to eliminate the yearly tax burden.
Of course, nothing is guaranteed at this point, and lawmakers are currently working to see what alternative revenue streams are available, or can be created, if the state’s personal property tax is ended.
“The Legislature is working on a plan to fully fund counties and schools at least as high or higher than current property tax revenues,” state Sen. Chandler Swope, R-6th District, said earlier this month. “The goal is to publish this plan well in advance of the November election when voters will vote on Amendment One. This amendment will allow the legislature to cut property taxes.”
Ending the state’s personal property tax, which costs Mercer County residents hundreds of dollars or more a year on their vehicles, would be popular among voters, according to Delegate Marty Gearheart, R-Mercer County. He believes Amendment One will be approved by voters in November.
“I support it, but we have to have a continuous funding mechanism in place,” Gearheart said.
According to Mercer County Assessor Lyle Cottle, the average annual tax ticket on a vehicle in Mercer County is about $450, with more expensive vehicles running $1,500 or more. However, Mercer County also stands to lose about $8 million in revenue which goes to the local school system if the amendment passes, according to Cottle.
Cottle said any new revenue stream that is created in the absence of the personal property tax would have to be in “perpetuity” because the counties must have it every year in order to provide all of the necessary service to residents, from education to law enforcement to parks.
Swope doesn’t know when the replacement revenue stream plan will be announced, but he is confident that it will be published well in advance of the November election, so that voters will have ample time to review the plan.
Mercer County Commissioner Greg Puckett says the county could not function without the money, adding it has to come in every year, and not for just a limited period of time.
The primary reason for cutting the personal property tax bill, according to Swope and other Republican lawmakers, is to entice more businesses and people to locate in the state.
While amendments aren’t always approved by voters — sometimes voters simply aren’t educated in advance of election day about the details of a specific amendment — one that promises the elimination of the state’s personal property tax is likely to pass. After all, who enjoys paying taxes?
Of course, the devil is in the details. So it will be interesting to see the fine print of the revenue stream replacement plan once it is released by the Republican-controlled Legislature.
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Parkersburg News and Sentinel. July 20, 2022.
Editorial: Morrisey: Attorney general defending outdated law
West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey has made a name for himself by correctly fighting against overreach on the part of federal agencies who try to sidestep Congress. He seems to have forgotten that in his quest to enforce a 173-year-old (older than the state itself) abortion law, rather than wait for the state Legislature to act.
Kanawha County Circuit Court Judge Tera L. Salango was correct in issuing a preliminary injunction against the ban, as she pointed out recent laws passed by our Legislature “hopelessly conflict with the criminal abortion ban.”
Morrisey remains impatient and indignant, however.
“This is a dark day for West Virginia,” he lamented, while vowing to appeal the decision.
Morrisey’s ideology and emotions are leading him to forget the importance of getting the job done properly — much as he accused federal Environmental Protection Agency officials of doing in his fight against the way they dealt with coal-fired power plants.
After the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in his favor on that count, Morrisey crowed that it was “a very important victory for separation of powers, for the rule of law,” and said he hoped it would ensure “overreaching government knows it has limits.”
Indeed.
Legislative leadership was right to bristle at Morrisey’s rush to weigh in on the matter in the first place.
“We will put in the time and the work we need to do to make sure we arrive at the proper place. We must have a legally sound, fully defensible law. We are already working to craft legislation that reflects the pro-life position of this House and is consistent with the Dobbs opinion. If action on our part is required, we will take it, and we will take it in the time and manner of our choosing, not of others,” said House Speaker Roger Hanshaw, R-Clay.
Good.
Morrisey might want a return to the legal norms of the mid-1800s, but he would better serve himself and the people of West Virginia by getting out of the way and letting lawmakers do their jobs — passing a law suited to the 21st Century.
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The Intelligencer. July 20, 2022.
Editorial: W.Va.’s Clean Energy Future
West Virginia’s economic future depends in part on expanding opportunities for clean energy. Our citizens understand it, business leaders demand it, and expert research confirms it. Now it is up to Congress to act on it.
The U.S. Senate is considering whether to advance a package of clean energy incentives that would yield significant economic benefits for West Virginians — both in terms of job gains and by avoiding economic losses that are sure to follow if these policies do not pass.
Just as West Virginians are interested in being part of a more sustainable future — as demonstrated by polling showing 95% of voters support expanding clean energy production — the marketplace is also demanding action.
Clean energy is already informing the decisions of major new business prospects. Access to renewable energy was a key consideration in Nucor Steel’s recent decision for locating their proposed $2.7 billion facility in the state. If those renewable energy needs were not met, the state would have lost its single largest economic development project ever, according to public statements by Chris Beam, president of Appalachian Power, which provides electricity to half of West Virginia.
Nucor is not an isolated case, Beam said. Because one large manufacturer’s renewable energy needs could not be met, for example, their project went elsewhere. The jobs lost with it were “career jobs” — the types of jobs that support a family, put kids through college and buy a home.
For some time, companies have been making promises to shareholders and customers to become more sustainable and provide benefits for the land, water, and air that communities need to grow, including the power it takes to run their factories.
By increasing its supply of clean power, West Virginia will better compete with surrounding states that are already positioning themselves to help companies meet their commitments.
In Congress, our own Sen. Joe Manchin has been pragmatically discussing federal incentives and investments that could help level the playing field for West Virginia. These incentives would build off the state’s energy foundation and support the full suite of clean energy options — natural gas plants that capture and store emissions underground, clean hydrogen, alongside wind and solar power. Other investments enhance West Virginia’s vast forest resources’ ability to absorb and store carbon from the atmosphere.
Manchin has rightly focused on what these actions by Congress mean for families in West Virginia facing ever-increasing economic uncertainty. So in addition to increasing our state’s ability to attract new business, we wanted to quantify the positive job impact these clean energy incentives could also bring to our communities.
New research commissioned by The Nature Conservancy shows these policies are a smart investment in the state’s economic future. The analysis, conducted by BW Research Partnership, reveals that these investments would support more than 7,300 jobs every year for the next decade, at least half of which are “career jobs” mentioned by Beam. These results are on top of the benefits our state will see from the bipartisan infrastructure bill that Manchin led last year. Together, these federal investments would significantly contribute to West Virginia’s pathway to a brighter economic future.
Finally, we must also consider what additional government spending will do to the deficit and inflation. Here again is good news. In general, expanding clean energy lowers energy costs, which both helps consumers and addresses a key driver to inflation.
The state and the country face tough challenges with the economic uncertainty right in front of us and farther in the future. The clean energy policies in discussion can help address both. The opportunity to make that economically sustainable future a reality is in front of our lawmakers right now and they must act quickly to enact the clean energy provisions on the table this Congress.
Thomas Minney is Executive Director of The Nature Conservancy in West Virginia. Beth Wheatley is The Nature Conservancy’s Director of State Climate and Energy Policy for the U.S. and Senior Adviser to West Virginia.
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