(A News and Sentinel Op-Ed - Photo Illustration - MetroCreativeConnection)

There has been quite a PR campaign as of late from state and federal officials in West Virginia promoting the continuation of our state’s deleterious reliance on fossil fuels and careless deregulation. Officeholders ranging from Gov. Patrick Morrisey and State Treasurer Larry Pack to Sen. Shelley Moore Capito and EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin have toured the state and offered op-eds proffering their dangerous and myopic energy policies, regulatory frameworks and proposals.

The most recent editorial effort by Administrator Zeldin and Sen. Capito, published in last weekend’s edition of this paper, dabbled in the history of Mountain State coal, oil and gas in order to make the argument that the only way for West Virginia to remain an energy-producing and manufacturing state is for it to remain an extraction colony and sacrifice zone. I beg to differ.

Zeldin and Capito argue that Presidents Obama and Biden presided over eras of economic ruination for West Virginia–a claim both know to be demonstrably false and propagandistic. President Biden presided over passage of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) and the CHIPS Act. While neither the IRA nor the IIJA were near what might have been with the Build Back Better Act (because of Sen. Joe Manchin III), they still represented a manufacturing renaissance and a bold 21st Century energy vision, especially in states like West Virginia.

President Obama’s much Republican-maligned Clean Power Plan was not the horrid regulatory imposition on industry that Zeldin and Capito (for the 1,000th time) frivolously claim. In fact, though the plan did not go into full effect due to legal challenges, its emissions reduction goal was met 11 years early in 2019, nonetheless, due to greater energy efficiencies, greater wind and solar deployment and energy market prices that resulted in broad shifts from coal to natural gas.

Truth be told, President Obama presided over the onslaught and the peak years of the fracking boom and the lifting of the export ban on fracked gas. Under the Biden administration, the U.S. became the world’s leading producer and exporter of oil and gas due to fracking. Neither of these truths are what I consider brags, but they certainly negate the false narrative that somehow Trump and the Republicans have done more for these industries that Zeldin and Capito think make up West Virginia’s only potential than Democrats.

Zeldin, like Scott Pruitt and Andrew Wheeler before him, represents the antithesis of what an EPA Administrator should be. The EPA is responsible for administering a huge body of law, found under the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) Title 40: Protection of Environment. These include, but are not limited to: Clean Air Act; Clean Water Act; Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA, also known as Superfund); Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA); Safe Drinking Water Act; Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA); Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA); and the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA). Both times Trump has been president, industry shills with little to no valid experience have taken the reins of the different offices and areas of EPA and deliberately betrayed the agency’s missions.

It is nothing short of a travesty that Capito is the chairperson of the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. This leadership position in what is essentially the world’s most powerful deliberative body should be held by a person dedicated to serving the interests of labor and consumers and willing to engage in fearless environmental stewardship and unyielding environmental and public health protection. The committee’s focus should be on sustainability and shared prosperity. Capito serves only corporate America (particularly polluting industries like fossil fuels) and, by extension, herself.

West Virginians need safe, potable water. We need safe sewer systems, especially in places where there is no municipal sewer. We need affordable, clean energy and access to locally grown and raised food, especially in our many food deserts. We need clean, safe, healthy rivers, creeks and streams. We need strong conservation efforts and protections for biodiversity in our forests and wooded areas. We need to address our crumbling infrastructure in sustainable ways.

Rather than addressing any of this, all we hear from these Republican politicians is how we need to massively subsidize and deregulate 19th Century energy industries and build water and energy-guzzling AI data centers in pristine places like Tucker, Mingo and Mason Counties. We deserve better than this pandering nonsense that doesn’t actually serve us. Elections matter.

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Eric Engle is a Parkersburg resident.