Senate bill would remove tax break for West Virginia wind farms
CLARKSBURG, W.Va. (WBOY) — A Senate Bill introduced in West Virginia last month is looking to do away with a long-standing tax credit for wind turbines in the state.
Senate Bill 439, which was introduced by Senator Chris Rose (R – Monongalia, 02), would repeal §11-6A-5a of the West Virginia state code and is currently under review in the Senate finance committee. Currently, §11-6A-5a designates wind turbines as 'pollution control facilities.' In West Virginia, pollution control facilities are taxed at a much lower rate than other kinds of property, and it's this reduced tax rate that Rose says is 'unfair' to other energy sectors in the state.
'When you're taxed on the real property value of your home, or a coal mine or a gas facility is taxed on theirs, you pay at a much higher tax rate than what the windmills are receiving,' Rose told 12 News in an interview over Zoom. 'This was a special carve out that only they receive, which many of us around the state feel is unfair for the rest of the industry.'
Rose argues that unlike coal mines, windmills aren't required to pay a severance tax on the energy it produces; in West Virginia, a piece of coal is taxed as soon as it is extracted or 'severed' from the ground. Even without being considered a pollution control facility, Rose says wind turbines would still be at an advantage over the coal industry because turbines do not pay the state severance tax.
On the other hand, Senator Joey Garcia (D – Marion, 13) says that SB 439 would be seen as a betrayal to the businesses that have already invested into wind energy in the state with §11-6A-5a in mind.
'It's kind of a slap and an affront to those businesses in West Virginia, including those energy businesses that want to bring new investments to the state of West Virginia,' Garcia told 12 News. 'I think it's had a bad effect already from what I've heard. Just the fact that we're debating the bill means that you have some of these companies wondering, are we going to keep our promises as the state of West Virginia and give them some foreseeability about what's going to happen in the future?'
West Virginia is the country's fifth largest producer of energy according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, but only about 7% of the state's energy came from renewable sources like wind, solar and hydroelectric. However, wind accounted for more than half of the state's renewable energy production with 428 turbines scattered across the Allegheny Highlands.
West Virginia Department of Agriculture wants to treat 17k acres to kill invasive moth
Instead of looking at one sector's tax treatment, Garcia said he wants the state to pursue an 'all of the above' approach when it comes to energy production, especially when many industries, not just wind production, receive tax incentives in some form or another. But if the state did want to seriously invest in improving renewable energy generation, wind may not even be the best choice for large-scale production.
Legislators have at least shown some interest in nuclear energy when it repealed a ban on nuclear power plants in 2022, but Garcia says nuclear power projects would be a long-term investment that may not provide returns until a decade later.
If you want to follow SB 439 for yourself, you can track the bill on the West Virginia state legislature website.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Ranked-Choice Voting in NYC Faces Its Make-or-Break Moment
Four years ago, ranked-choice voting made its debut in New York City's mayoral primary. As the city ramps up toward what's looking to be a closely contested Democratic nomination fight, candidates and outside political organizations have found that there remains much to learn about the still-novel system. In these final weeks, the mayoral hopefuls are working to tailor their campaigns to train voters on what they need to do when they enter their voting booths. The city adopted ranked-choice voting for municipal primaries in 2019, allowing voters to rank up to five candidates in order of preference. If no candidate earns more than 50 percent of the vote in the first round, the candidate earning the lowest vote share is eliminated, with their ballots redistributed to the voters' next choices. This continues for several rounds, until one candidate earns a majority threshold of support. If a voter does not rank five candidates, there is a chance their ballot will become 'exhausted': If they only choose two candidates, and both of their options are eliminated, their ballot will not count toward the final result. After the 2021 mayoral election, exit polling by Common Cause and Rank the Vote NYC—campaigns that backed ranked-choice voting—found that 83 percent of Democratic voters ranked at least two candidates on their ballot, while 42 percent ranked five candidates. In an effort to understand the victory of moderate Democrat Eric Adams, who has been embroiled in multiple scandals during his four years as mayor, the New York Working Families Party—a powerful progressive party organization in the city—began analyzing how they might ensure a candidate more favorable to its ideals could win in 2025. 'Despite the skepticism at the time of ranked-choice voting and how voters would understand and engage in it, the fact is that most voters gave it a try. But the political ecosystem of candidates, of endorsing organizations, press, and elected officials, for the most part, didn't actually try to guide voters how to use ranked-choice voting,' said Ana María Archila, co-director of the New York Working Families Party. Archila said that her organization had learned a lesson from the actions of two of the 2021 candidates. One week before the Democratic mayoral primary, candidates Andrew Yang and Kathryn Garcia formed a late-breaking alliance, appearing together on the campaign trail. Yang encouraged his supporters to rank Garcia second, in an effort to stymie the momentum of the leading candidate, Adams. The show of unity between Garcia and Yang indicated a new type of strategy, one where the would-be nominees recognized that their chances of winning would increase if their rivals' supporters ranked them second or third on the ballot. The tactic worked, but only to an extent: In the eighth round of voting, after Yang had been eliminated, Garcia was boosted to second place behind Adams, as enough Yang voters had ranked her second. However, it wasn't enough to push her across the finish line, and she narrowly lost the primary contest to Adams, who was then elected as mayor in November of that year. The eighth round of counting ended with more than 140,000 exhausted ballots—nearly 20 times Adams's margin of victory. If even a small percentage had ranked Garcia in any position, she would have defeated Adams. 'We spent a lot of time looking at that to understand, what are the pieces that need to be in place?' said Archila. 'We need to create an ecosystem that supports collaboration instead of just competition. We need to endorse a slate of candidates and help them work together. And we need to make sure that voters are told, very explicitly, not to rank the candidate of the opposition, which in this case now is Andrew Cuomo.' The entrance of Cuomo, the former governor who resigned amid allegations of sexual harassment in 2021, further galvanized progressive candidates and groups in particular, hoping to stave off his headwinds due to name recognition. Recent polling has shown a surge in support for Zohran Mamdani, a progressive state lawmaker who appears to be closing in on overtaking Cuomo's lead. The Working Families Party has put Mamdani at the top of its slate of preferred candidates. (The party originally only endorsed four candidates, but has since encouraged voters to fill out all five options.) This is also a strategy employed by prominent supporters of candidates. When Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez endorsed Mamdani, she released her entire ballot ranking her preferred candidates. Representative Nydia Velazquez did the same, listing City Council President Adrienne Adams, City Comptroller Brad Lander, and Mamdani as her top three choices. Both Ocasio-Cortez and Velazquez explicitly framed their endorsements in terms of stopping Cuomo's momentum. (DREAM, a small but influential super PAC, has aided these efforts by blanketing the city with its message: 'Don't Rank Evil Andrew for Mayor.') Some candidates seem to be pleased with earning support from a prominent endorser, even if they're lower on the ballot. Lander, whom Ocasio-Cortez said she would rank third on her ballot, said in a press conference that he was 'grateful to have her support now running for mayor.' Scott Stringer, another candidate, whom Ocasio-Cortez ranked fourth, said that her mention of him on her ballot was 'going to help me tremendously.' Archila said that when Working Families Party volunteers engage in canvassing and phone banking efforts, they are encouraging voters to rank their entire slate of preferred candidates, instead of focusing solely on Mamdani. 'This time around, we are much more explicitly trying to establish that connection, saying, 'If you like this person, then you'll also like this other person and this one and this one, and you won't like this person,'' she said. Susan Lerner, the executive director of Common Cause New York and chair of the board of Rank the Vote NYC—which led the campaign to introduce ranked-choice voting to New York City—said that she was expecting voters to employ ranked-choice voting in an even more effective and 'nuanced' method in 2025, having learned from 2021. She also argued that candidates were more aware of how to effectively campaign for ranked-choice voting. 'We are seeing more mayoral candidates talk about ranked-choice voting earlier,' she said. 'It's more of a dialog with the voters. It also means the candidates themselves reach out and take the time to appear at events in parts of the community that previously they have not bothered to talk to.' But the political dynamics of this election are complicated. Because New York City is so heavily Democratic, the primary outcomes often determine the result of the general election. Moreover, New York's primaries are closed, meaning that only voters registered as Democrats will be able to vote on Tuesday. But this year, the general election may be actually competitive, with a larger universe of voters determining the outcome. Adams is running as an independent, and there is a good chance that, if Mamdani is the runner-up in the Democratic primary, the Working Families Party will put him on its party line. (The Working Families Party currently has a 'placeholder' candidate as its nominee, who can be swapped out after the Democratic primary.) Harry Siegel, a columnist for the Daily News, said that the focus on Cuomo and Mamdani was edging out consideration of other candidates who do not have the baggage of the former, and the relative inexperience of the latter. 'The choice that both Cuomo and Mamdani have promoted to this day is that 'this is what you have to decide between,'' Siegel said. 'That is remarkably distinct from what New Yorkers seem to want, which is someone who's not exhausting, scandal-prone, and difficult in the vein of Adams or Cuomo, and who has something more to offer in terms of actually delivering things than, I would say, Mamdani.' Because Mamdani is seen as the most credible alternative to Cuomo in terms of polling, it may have inspired the more moderate candidates to carve out their own lane—but they could find it hard to leverage that strategy into success. In an interview with the New York Editorial Board, Adrienne Adams said that the system 'makes things different for sure.' 'I'm not really critical of it because I think that it has helped for folks to exercise their vote even wider, in a wider perspective, even in a more democratic perspective, if we want to look at it that way also,' said Adams. 'I'm not going to really be critical of it, but it is challenging for some folks like me.' Siegel also argued that this system makes the entire process unnecessarily complicated, particularly for low-information voters. There will be state elections on the same ballot that are not subject to ranked-choice voting, which Siegel said could cause confusion. 'It takes many charts and a lot of thinking that tons of people will be doing from the ballot booth while desperately googling things or texting friends to figure out how to strategize and vote in this phase of the election,' Siegel argued. 'It is too much to think about. It is too much to explain. It demands complicated sentences.' Moreover, unlike the municipal primary elections, the general election does not use ranked-choice voting. There will be multiple candidates on the general election ballot, including the Republican and Conservative Party nominees, but voters will only choose one candidate, and the top vote-getter will win. 'The issue here is not the ranked-choice [voting] by itself. It's the partial ranked-choice system with different rules applying at different phases,' Siegel said. But Lerner argued that voters needed more experience with ranked-choice voting before the city could consider making even broader changes to the process, either with open primaries or adjusting how the general election is run. 'It's been our general feeling that it's important to run with two large mayoral campaigns—the full slate of municipal elections with ranked-choice voting—through at least two cycles. And then let's examine how it's working in New York, and if there are changes we want to make,' she said.
Axios
3 hours ago
- Axios
Best Austin day ever with Andy Roddick Foundation CEO
With summer's start, things have heated up with the Austin-based Andy Roddick Foundation and its CEO, Jaime Garcia. Why it matters: The foundation tries to address the opportunity gap by running after-school and summer camps for kids in poorer communities around Austin. "Those that can fund it are giving their kids more and more experiences, and those that can't are just falling behind during the summer, and they're having to relearn their math and reading all over again," Garcia tells Axios. By the numbers: Last year, 220 children from Harris, Hart and Pecan Springs elementary schools — in East and Northeast Austin — attended the foundation summer camps. The chief aim of the camps is to keep up and improve academic skills with 6-to-1 student-to-teacher ratios. "That's like a private school experience," she says, noting outings to museums and spelunking activities at caves. "The two biggest barriers for any child attending after-school and summer care are cost and access." Threat level: President Trump's proposed budget for fiscal year 2026 would zero out funding for 21st Century Community Learning Centers, the only federal funding stream dedicated to afterschool and summer programs, per the Afterschool Alliance, a nonprofit that advocates for access to afterschool programs. As part of our running feature asking Austinites about their best day ever, we met up with Garcia to talk about her ideal day. Garcia grew up in Houston and came to Austin to attend the University of Texas, where she majored in biology before getting a master's degree in business at Texas State. She and her husband have raised two daughters in southwest Austin. This interview has been edited for clarity. How does your ideal day begin? "I love meeting our foundation partners at Mozart's and ask how I can support them. Or I go for one-on-ones around the lake, where I find peace and where I love to run — I've run four marathons." What's next? "I'm probably hosting a summer tour — it's important for corporations to come through and see the work that's being done. Closing that learning gap means working together. They might see a teacher working on a STEM project with kids. Or how we bring in roller skates and entire kits — how it's tough at first, but how they get the hang of it by week two." What are you doing for lunch? "I might meet at the Grove with a supporter of the foundation. They make a great kale salad." You're meeting with families, too? "I love the foundation's family nights — we'll serve pizza to the kids and their families at one of the schools, and they can do something like create art together. And we always have middle schoolers and high schoolers who have been through the program who rush in — they love helping out." And what about you and your family? "We try to get dinner together. If we're going out, we love Cabo Bob's." "I grew up in a family where my mom made tortillas every single day of my life. We didn't even use forks because we used tortillas to eat our food. So I'm very picky going into a restaurant — if it's store-bought, it doesn't work for me. Hence Cabo Bob's — they've got homemade tortillas — and they're fun, too."
Yahoo
7 hours ago
- Yahoo
MAGA Boxer Ryan Garcia Punches Back At Donald Trump: ‘I Can't Stay Silent…'
MAGA boxer Ryan Garcia has turned on Donald Trump and slammed the president over his administration's aggressive immigration raids in Los Angeles. Garcia has previously praised Trump as 'the best president' and shadowboxed for him during a visit to his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida. He even once wrote on social media, 'Love you Trump,' and fiercely defended him in other posts. But on Thursday, Garcia ripped Trump in response to his controversial immigration crackdown that has sparked protests in L.A. and to which Trump has deployed the National Guard, a move that has been slammed as a major, unneeded and divisive escalation by critics. 'I may have voted for Trump, but I can't stay silent about what's happening with ICE in L.A.,' Garcia wrote on X, formerly Twitter. 'These aren't just 'illegals' or statistics they're people,' pointed out the Victorville-born and raised pugilist, whose grandparents were born in Mexico and who often enters the ring with both the American and Mexican flags. 'Hardworking immigrants, especially Mexicans, who pay taxes, raise families, build our communities, and are part of the people we love,' Garcia continued. 'Ripping them away from their homes is not just policy it's pain. We can have borders without losing our humanity.' Garcia was last year expelled by the World Boxing Council for using racial slurs during a livestream. He's also come under fire for anti-LGBTQ remarks. 'Daily Show' Audience Erupts Over Desi Lydic's Trump Parade Realization Trump Ducks 'Les Misérables' Character Question, Internet Brutally Answers It For Him Jimmy Kimmel Spots Exact Moment Trump's Mar-A-Lago Turned Into 'Insane Asylum'
