So I got back a little while ago from the Public Service Commission’s hearing about Longview II (or Son of Longview, as I think of it) in Morgantown at the Mon County Courthouse. 

The PSC has received only SIX letters or online comments opposing the plant and 103 letters and comments in support of the plant.

So now is the time for you to submit a comment or letter, the PSC will accept them until late January when they have evidentiary hearings, so please, do it now!

File a Letter of Protest with the WV Public Service Commission or File a Comment Online and ask that the Certificate of Site Approval be denied as it is written now.  Please be sure to reference Case # 19-0890 in your letter or comments and state you are opposed (you are filing a ‘letter of protest’).

• Mail letters to (and don’t forget to mention Case # 19-0890):
• Ms. Connie Graley, Executive Secretary
• West Virginia Public Service Commission
• 201 Brooks St
• Charleston, WV 25301

• Or Comment Online Protesting Case Number 19-0890 at:

http://www.psc.state.wv.us/Scripts/OnlineComments/formalComments.cfm?CaseID=73056&CaseNumber=19%2D0890%2DE%2DCS%2DCN

Things you may want to consider as you write your letter or comment:

• Why are we subsidizing a fossil-fuel plan that will be obsolete by the time it comes online?  Rather, let’s put all of our hard-earned tax money into renewable energy, which is growing faster and becoming cheaper than gas-fired generation.  Gas plants will soon be what coal plants are now: obsolete.  Longview II proposes a little bit of solar generation (mostly in Pennsylvania) so it can pretend it cares about the environment.  As one of the speakers tonight said at the PSC hearing, “This is Greenwashing.” 

• Why are we, Mon County and state taxpayers, giving a tax break to this for-profit company to build an antiquated power plant?  ... especially when this same company has already bilked us for many millions of dollars?  Read this West Virginia Center on Budget & Policy article for the facts about why giving tax abatements (tax breaks) to Longview II through a payment in lieu of taxes (PILOT) scheme is a bad idea: https://wvpolicy.org/pilot-agreements-cost-state-millions-in-tax-revenue-an-in-depth-look-at-longview-power-plant/.  The Mon County Commission has not even released the final PILOT agreement.  No one has calculated if the last PILOT we gave Longview was worth it.  There is no transparency and no accountability.  West Virginians are poor.  We should not be giving corporate welfare to rich, for-profit companies polluting our air and water to produce electricity for people outside our state. 

• West Virginia generates three times more electricity than it consumes: we should not be subsidizing electricity for people and business outside our state. We don’t need the electricity here in Mon County or in West Virginia.  We already generate much more power than we use.  The Beechurst plant may stop burning coal, but it will burn gas and continue to operate.  Fort Martin isn’t going anywhere soon.  Longview II will not replace the Fort Martin Power Plant (which, by the way, is in West Virginia, nor Pennsylvania).  Proponents of the original Longview said Longview I would do that, but the Fort Martin Power station is still operating over 20 years past it’s designed life expectancy.  Huge coal-fired power stations still operate just north of us in Masontown, PA and south of us in Harrison County, WV.  Other, smaller power stations are all around us.

• The “gas is clean” argument does not hold up.  Natural-gas extraction has adverse real-time consequences for West Virginians in addition to climate change.  From polluted air and water near well pads and compressor stations to constant noise and dangerous roads.  Once again people in West Virginia pay the price, with their taxes and their lives, for dirty electricity used outside our state.

The Dominion Post constantly publishes Longview’s BS line about how their current coal-fired facility is so clean and wonderful (the cleanest in the universe), when in reality, Longview took our money and went bankrupt after its plant cost more than DOUBLE the $900 Million Longview Power said it would cost, and then the plant did not completely function when it eventually came online.  Coal-fired Longview finally became fully operational only after many more millions of dollars were sunk into the plant by its creditors, just in time for natural gas prices to plummet and make coal uneconomical.  Longview lies.  They lied to us before, they are lying now, and they will lie in the future.  Longview knows it can get money from us again because we fell all over ourselves to give it money last time.  Yes, we are suckers.  As the saying goes, “Fool me twice, shame on me.“  We are being fooled again. 

Please, write the letter.

-paula