Republican Will Morefield, now the youngest member of the Virginia General Assembly, thought he’d been through a tough challenge when he ran in the 3rd District against a Democratic incumbent twice his age – and won.
That was before the Tazewell small business owner traveled to Richmond for his first year in the Virginia House, just three days after his 26th birthday.
“It’s extremely busy and fast-paced,” Morefield said in a Thursday phone interview from his office in Richmond. “You have to be in more than three places at the same time.”
This year could prove to be an especially trying time for Morefield and the other seven men who represent Southwest Virginia. By the time this year’s General Assembly session adjourns in mid-March, those delegates and state senators will have tackled: a state budget that is $4.4 billion short; a utility company that has raised their constituents’ utility bills by 60 percent in the past two years; and an economy that’s been hit by a crippling recession.
“Southwest Virginians need to stick together on these issues,” Morefield said of the top three concerns shared by the region’s legislative delegation.
The budget
Sen. William Wampler, R-Bristol, has served as a General Assembly budget conferee, a lawmaker on the joint committee that hammers out differences in the House and Senate budgets, since 1996. When asked Thursday about the current budget dilemma, Wampler said: “We’re in uncharted territory. … In the 22 years I’ve served it’s never been this bad.”
When former Gov. Tim Kaine presented his proposed budget to the Virginia General Assembly in December, it included spending cuts of about $2 billion and a plan to bring back the car tax and raise revenues by $1.9 billion.
Wampler said Gov. Bob McDonnell and members of the House of Delegates almost immediately rejected Kaine’s plan because of the impact such a tax increase could have on the state’s residents in these trying economic times.
“You can’t raise taxes with this economy,” Delegate Terry Kilgore, R-Gate City, said. Families and businesses across the country have been cutting back, he said, and: “We need to tighten our belts as well.”
Wampler said that without raising taxes, legislators must cover the deficit by almost doubling the $2 billion in spending cuts Kaine proposed in December. The bulk of the cuts Kaine proposed were in education and Medicaid services, Wampler said.
“Looks to me like we’re heading toward personnel layoffs,” Sen. Phil Puckett, D-Lebanon, said. “That’s the only thing you can do to get the type of money” we need.
The other members of Southwest Virginia’s delegation painted an equally tough picture, repeatedly using such words as challenge, grim, and tough during interviews late last week. They’re hoping to absorb some of the impact through new legislation that would raise the fees the state charges for operating coal and mineral mines, and oil and natural gas wells.
They’ve also drawn a line in the sand trying to protect from further cuts key facets of state government – including education, public safety and services for senior citizens.
Puckett said many of those areas already operate on a shoestring budget.
“I just hope we don’t do anything to hurt the people who don’t have anything else,” Puckett said.
Utility rates
American Electric Power has been the sole power provider to almost all of Southwest Virginia’s residents since the state re-regulated its energy utilities in 2007. This hasn’t been an easy relationship for many of the region’s lawmakers.
“I’ve been at battle with AEP since 2006,” Delegate Bill Carrico, R-Galax, said in a telephone interview Thursday. He estimated the utility has increased its rates by 84 percent over the past five years.
On Friday, company spokesman Todd Burns agreed with Carrico’s assessment to some extent. The utility has increased its rates by 60 percent in the past two years, Burns said; its rates in December 2009 were 23 percent higher than they were in December 2008.
“Where we are today with rates is a reflection of what it costs us to serve our customers,” Burns said.
Carrico said his office gets 10 to 20 calls a day about the rate increase, and that prompted him to set up a Web site, www.AEPAction.org, linking people to the State Corporation Commission, the agency that regulates Virginia’s utility industry.
The delegate also is sponsoring legislation designed to help his constituents by placing restrictions on future rate increases. One bill would cap rate increases at 5 percent if the unemployment rate is higher than 5 percent. Another Carrico bill would eliminate the temporary or interim rate increases companies may charge while a proposed full-time rate increase is considered by the SCC.
“The whole delegation’s united in this,” Kilgore said of the struggle against AEP. “We’re going to make sure those folks get some relief from those high utility bills.”
Burns said a lot of the controversy surrounding his company’s utility rates is being fueled by an abnormally cold winter plaguing the region with multiple snow storms and record-breaking cold snaps. The problems are made worse when a home isn’t properly insulated or its heating and cooling equipment is inefficient or improperly maintained, he said.
He also said steps taken to keep up with increased costs of fuel or environmental regulation are behind more than half of this year’s 23 percent rate increase.
Building AEP’s John Amos coal-fired power plant outside of Charleston, W.Va., cost about $800 million, Burns said. And the company had to spend $1.5 billion from 2006-08 outfitting that plant with chemical scrubbers so it could comply with new federal regulations.
“We have to have a timely recovery of the expenses we incur,” Burns said. Without that ability, he said, the company would end up paying more in the form of higher bond premiums or interest rates to expand its facilities and meet its customers needs.
Whatever the reason for the increases, Carrico said, they’ve hit the region in a bad economy and have placed a substantial burden on people already struggling to make a living.
“At a certain point the people’s ability to pay is limited,” Carrico said. “I feel their pain. It’s hard for me” to pay the bills.
Wampler said, he and the other Southwest Virginia legislators have been meeting regularly with AEP’s representatives to see if some type of compromise can be reached to meet the needs of both the company and the constituents. But if such a compromise can’t be reached, he said, the region’s delegation is ready to take steps that would give some of AEP’s service area to another private utility company or help public utility companies establish themselves in the region.
“That’s an extreme measure,” Wampler said. “But quite frankly, people just can’t afford the bills [AEP is] charging right now.”
Economic development
Southwest Virginia’s legislative delegation also is united in the desire to boost the region’s economy. One of the strategies is to make it easier for businesses to get financing from state economic development groups by:
* Increasing the Major Business Facility Tax Credit from $1,000 to $2,000.
* Reducing the number of jobs a new facility must create to qualify for that credit from 100 to 50 and from 50 to 25 if the business is in an economically distressed area.
* Requiring the state to issue 15 percent of its contracts to small, women and minority-owned businesses in poor non-metropolitan areas with high unemployment rates.
* Allowing the governor’s development opportunity fund to give projects in a central city or urban core grants of up to $2 million.
Another economic development strategy employed by the region’s delegation involves beefing up tourism in Southwest Virginia, a goal Kilgore hopes to accomplish by requiring the state government to create a directory of heritage tourism sites.
“It would show people who live away from here what we have and entice them to come here,” Washington County Tourism Director Myra Cook said Friday.
The proposed directory also would give people who came to the region for one reason, such as the Virginia Highlands Festival, the ability to find other attractions in the area and plan their trips accordingly, she said.
Even Morefield is getting involved in the economic development through tourism game by sponsoring legislation to beef up the Spearhead Trail, a system of ATV routes being developed across 10 Southwest Virginia localities.
The freshman delegate’s legislation would: give the agency maintaining the trail the ability to manage its own police force; create a tax credit for businesses and individuals who let the trail run through their property; and allow local governments to donate a portion of their civil fine collections to the trail’s development.
“We’re focused on job creation here,” Morefield said.
gmclean@bristolnews.com | (276) 645-2518
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