The economic vector of West Virginia (and parts of Pennsylvania and Ohio adjoining it) has reversed course since the election of President Donald Trump, going from depressed (and forgotten) to growing and attracting huge structural investments from overseas. You can see the changes on the ground, not just in dry economic statistics. It is one thing to read about GNP growth roughly doubling since President Trump reformed the oppressive regulatory environment and devoted attention to reviving King Coal to his former majesty in West Virginia (and then some). Casey Jenkins of the Wilkes-Barre Times Leader writes from Wheeling, W.Va. about what is already visible and what is on the way for one of the most depressed areas of the nation: As 2017 closes, the wait is on to see how the announcement by China Energy to spend $83.7 billion to build petrochemical plants and electricity[-]generators in West Virginia will unfold in 2018 and beyond. The proposed PTT Global Chemical ethane cracker for Belmont County, meanwhile, a project with an estimated price tag of up to $6 billion, will eventually realize an affirmative or negative decision, as well. Still, even before these "downstream" investments, new pipelines continue to be built, new wells are being drilled and fracked, and more coal continues to be shipped out of the region. Keep in mind that the China Energy proposed investment is larger than the state domestic product of West Virginia. But already things are visibly booming: Virtually anywhere one goes in the Upper Ohio Valley, he or she will likely see signs of the oil and natural gas industry. Whether one sees rigs rising above the horizon in Belmont County, pipelines being installed in Marshall County, pickup trucks and sport-utility vehicles parked at hotels in Ohio County, flaring at processing plants in Harrison County, or "sand can" trucks traveling between fracking operations along highways, the signs are clear[:] ... - the 36-inch[-]diameter Nexus Pipeline, which will travel 255 miles to connect the Marcellus and Utica shale region to the Detroit area at a cost of nearly $2 billion for developer[] Spectra Energy; - the $4.3[-]billion Rover Pipeline, which will ship up to 3.25 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day in pipe up to 42 inches in diameter from West Virginia and Ohio to Michigan; - the $3.5[-]billion Mountain Valley Pipeline, which would run southward from the MarkWest Mobley plant in Wetzel County toward Virginia; and - the $5.1[-]billion Atlantic Coast Pipeline, which is planned to be 564 miles long with the 42-inch pipeline diameter in stretching from West Virginia to North Carolina. http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/01/what_maga_looks_like_a_report_from_west_virginia.html The article expands on the massive infrastructure being built in the region to sustain an energy and manufacturing economy. It describes how an area forgotten or even aggressively punished by the federal government is now experiencing economic revival. There will be a lot of high paying jobs created in the region.
And you don’t think these investments could’ve happened under Obama? I am always amazed at how people think these corporations just got billions overnight to invest in America since election night, as if they didn’t have those billions before.
Donald Trump could end world hunger, and there'd still be people hating his guts lol. He's not perfect(not even close), but he's not this incarnation of evil either. If we survived GWB, we can survive Trump.
Trump is cutting taxes and regulations and allowing more energy development than before. None of what the article describes would have happened had Hillary replaced Obama. And Obama tried to strangle that region of the country during his 2 terms in his war on coal.
Coal is an outdated power source. The only state out of the entire country that relies on coal for energy is Nebraska. Obama knew this. There was never a war on coal, it was just the miners who were upset their dinosaur gas wasn’t in demand anymore, and the government knew it. Investments can happen with taxes and regulations. You still bank, even though the banking industry is highly regulated.
Yes, it showed great foresight by Don to place the shale that can be used for NG extraction in W. Virginia and for inventing the fracking technology to extract it. If this MOU had been arranged under Obama we'd be hearing what a bad idea it is to allow a Chinese company to build these facilities in the US.
Yeah, this totally isn't going to be as hellish for the actual residents as the last time West Virginia supplied tons of energy. Black Lung was actually awesome and I'm glad it's coming back.
