Joe Manchin, part of your answer is Don Blankenship

Our Governor is going around pushing alternative energy, and more specifically CTL (Coal to Liquid) as evidenced by the article Governors Call for Energy Independence. I agree with the Wyoming Governor when he stated he had little faith in the Federal government to get anything done. Let's face it after the first energy crisis in the early 1970's we have known that oil is our Achilles Heal. Both parties have been in power in DC during past 35 years and neither one has come up with a comprehensive energy policy to wean us off foreign oil.

Joe is right in the fact that individual states need to take the lead in ending our energy dependence on foreign oil, but we do not need government running the program. That would be a disaster like all attempts at government to do anything that deals with the economy. There are two places I see that the state government can get involved. One is cut the states fuel tax in half on fuels made from WV coal, given a choice market forces will have the people buying the cheaper fuel. This will encourage growth in the WV CTL industry. The second is, Joe suck it up, work with Don Blankenship. Put together a group of business people together with Don Blankenship at the top of the heap to build a CTL plant.

What is needed is business people sitting down in the same room and hashing out the numbers. We don't need state government funneling money into a project creating corporate welfare. We need a solid business plan, and one that can stand on its own without government cash. In the late 1800's all the transcontinental rails roads but one failed. The only one that didn't file bankruptcy was James J. Hill's, Great Northern Railroad. The Great Northern was the only one that didn't take government money. James Hill stated, "The government should not furnish capital to these companies, in addition to their enormous land subsidies, to enable them to conduct their business in competition with enterprises that have received no aid from the public treasury." Government money makes companies inefficient, and when the money dries up they fail. That is exactly what happened to the other transcontinental railroads.

We do not want a CTL plant going up in the state based on government subsidized corporate welfare, because it will fail in the long run. Oil is now priced high enough that it makes economic sense to build a private plant for profit. The Free Market can support a CTL plant. Joe needs to use his power as governor to get the right people in the room to discuss the matter, and again Don Blankenship is at the top of that list. The plant(s) could be joint ventures between coal producers, fuel retailers, and in some cases large corporate fuel consumers. This way all involved will have an interest in seeing it succeed.

West Virginia has an opportunity, but Joe Manchin needs to work with Don Blankenship and others to get it started, then get out of the way.