Looking Back: Rep. McKinley thankful for a life spent in public service
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CHARLESTON -- As he wraps up the next few weeks representing the 1st District in Congress, Rep. David McKinley is taking stock of the last nearly 12 years of legislative service.
Since taking office in 2011, McKinley, R-W.Va., has had one mission for himself and his staff: "… to help the citizens of West Virginia achieve the highest quality of life." McKinley hopes he has lived up to this goal and hopes to one day see Congress return to bipartisan fixes for the nation.
"That was my mission," McKinley said by phone Tuesday. "We would start our meetings with 'what have we done for West Virginia today,' not what have we done for our party. I'm hoping in the coming years we'll be able to influence people to go back to legislating again; that it's not a bad word to negotiate or compromise and find a meeting ground between two sides."
When McKinley finishes up his sixth two-year term in the U.S. House of Representatives at the end of the year, he will be the last representative for the current 1st Congressional District, stretching from Wood County in the west to Mineral County in the east, from Hancock County to the north to Gilmer County to the south.
Due to population loss in West Virginia, the state dropped from three congressional districts to two. After last year's redistricting, McKinley's 1st District was combined with the 2nd Congressional District represented by Rep. Alex Mooney, R-W.Va., into the new northern 2nd District. After challenging each other in a heated Republican primary in May, Mooney defeated McKinley by more than 30 percentage points.
It was a hard loss for McKinley, who began his second political life winning the 1st Congressional District race after former Democratic Rep. Alan Mollohan - a 28-year incumbent - lost the Democratic primary to former Democratic state senator Mike Oliverio in 2010 (Oliverio switched registration from Democrat to Republican and will return to the state Senate in 2023).
McKinley -- a businessman, engineer, former state lawmaker and chairman of the West Virginia Republican Party - went on to defeat Oliverio in the 2010 general election, joining former Republican 2nd District Congresswoman Shelley Moore Capito and leaving just former 3rd District Congressman Nick Rahall as West Virginia's the last remaining Democrat in the U.S. House.
The make-up of the branches of government going into 2023 - with Democratic President Joe Biden, a Senate in Democratic hands, and a House in Republican hands - is reminiscent of the political landscape McKinley walked into in 2011. McKinley said the only way for government to function under such division is for the parties to work together.
"I think people are starting to grow weary of the idealism," McKinley said. "We're supposed to be a representative form of government, not a parliament where it is all about your party affiliation. That's their allegiance -- to their party. My allegiance during my 12 years in Congress was to my state."
According to statistics compiled by McKinley's office, 29 bills where McKinley was the lead sponsor were signed into law between 2011 and 2022, 49 McKinley-led bills passed the House, and he was able to offer 103 successful amendments to other legislation. During his career, McKinley introduced nearly 200 bills and resolutions -- legislation that often had bipartisan support.
McKinley was just as busy inside the state as he was in the halls of Congress. According to his office, McKinley's constituent services team worked to resolve 10,000 cases where residents needed help navigating the federal bureaucracy. And McKinley himself held more than 3,000 meetings within the state's borders with constituents.
And McKinley has no intentions of kicking his feet up and coasting the last few weeks of his term. He has already met with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif. -- who could be the next House Speaker -- to give him input on legislation that could come after the incoming Republican majority takes control in January.
Of continued focus for McKinley is the state's energy sector -- coal and natural gas. A ranking Republican member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Environment, McKinley would like to see legislation to help the nation get to net-zero carbon emissions while keeping coal and natural gas in the mix, then market that technology to developing nations to help them reduce their carbon emissions.
"Coal and natural gas are still absolutely in the crosshairs of the extreme environmentalists," McKinley said. "I'm hoping we can restart that program again. We're learning that we have to take the lead on this globally. If we can come up with a strategy of lowering emissions, then we can market that and then take it to China, India, Indonesia, Japan, and other nations still hellbent on using coal, which is great because it's one of the biggest things going for us in exports."
Another key component of McKinley's energy strategy is permitting reform to kickstart natural gas pipeline projects. Both Senators Manchin and Capito offered their own permitting reform bills, but Capito's bill was never taken up and Manchin's language was pulled from a continuing resolution to fund the government in September after Republicans in the Senate refused to support it after Manchin voted for the Inflation Reduction Act. McKinley would like to see permitting reform discussions resume.
"I talked with (Manchin and Capito) last week about permitting reform," McKinley said. "We need to have that permitting reform so we can take our natural resources to market. Right now, without having piping and a network, we're limited to only what we can consume in West Virginia and that's limited. We don't have that downstream manufacturing that demands the amount that we have. We have to get these pipelines constructed.
"I see some of the House leadership wanting to punish (Manchin) for his vote on the IRA," McKinley continued. "Did I agree with (Manchin)? Absolutely not, but if you're going to punish Joe and not get pipeline reform, then you're hurting West Virginia."
McKinley remains concerned about the influx of opioids -- particularly fentanyl -- into the country. McKinley said there is much work to be done by Congress on breaking the chains of substance use disorder.
"We have to finish things on opioids," McKinley said. "It's just a silent killer that's out there wiping out our young people and making it harder to find workers. I'm hoping we can finish some of the funding on opioid addiction."
Lastly, McKinley wants to make sure that funding from the $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act continues to flow to West Virginia. McKinley, Capito, and Manchin all supported the bill which will bring between $6 billion and $8 billion in infrastructure funding to the state.
McKinley credited the bill for helping North Carolina-based Nucor select Mason County for a new steel mill and the new Mountaintop Beverage facility in Morgantown that will manufacture shelf-stable dairy products. The state is building a new interchange that will benefit the facility.
"I want to keep monitoring the infrastructure bill and the spending on that," McKinley said. "Many of our economic development plans are all invested in the infrastructure bill. Without that, they were not going to happen."
McKinley and his staff are working on a book the highlight their accomplishments on behalf of West Virginia, featuring blurbs from state officials and congressional colleagues. McKinley hopes the book will show what can be done when one focuses on legislating and less on opposing things for the sake of political points or media attention.
"I want people to understand that you can get things done without compromising your conservative principles," McKinley said. "We have 105 pages, and some of the pages are testimonials … that are saying 'that's the one thing they will always remember about McKinley, is that he stood up for West Virginia. He was always a voice for West Virginia.' To me, that's our job; not what our own political future is. But are we representing our state and our district?"
Steven Allen Adams can be reached at sadams@newsandsentinel.com