WILLIAMSON, W.Va. - Federal grants to help redevelop and diversify local economies in Appalachia and other parts of the country were celebrated by recipients and local leaders on Friday, but Jay Williams, U.S. assistant secretary of commerce for economic development, hopes that funding is only a down payment on future federal development efforts.
Numerous federal officials, several county development authority members and a handful of non-profit leaders focused on local revitalization met in Williamson on Friday morning to announce more than $962,400 that would be invested in West Virginia communities.
The money is part of a larger effort by President Barack Obama and his administration to fund economic development programs under what is being referred to as the POWER Plus Plan.
The announcement in Williamson follows several other funding grants given to West Virginia, including a $7.6 million U.S. Department of Labor grant given to Workforce West Virginia for dislocated worker training programs.
Obama has asked Congress to pass billions of dollars in additional funding measures as part of the 2016 federal budget. Those proposals would pay for roughly $1 billion to clean up surface mines, $55 million for workforce development and $2 billion in tax credits for carbon capture technology that could sustain coal plants.
Williams, the former mayor of Youngstown, Ohio, said the POWER Plus plan was an acknowledgment of "seismic changes" in the country's power sector, which is partly the result of federal air emission regulations and significant market changes, like depleted coal seams in Southern West Virginia and competition with natural-gas power generation.
Unlike past decades, when the country went through dramatic economic shifts, Williams said federal officials are now attempting to find solutions to the large-scale changes. He said that is something that never happened for rust-belt cities like Youngstown, which saw their manufacturing base disappeared in the 1980s.
Some of the suggested uses for the development funding have been for the expansion of broadband Internet, business training opportunities, upgrades to industrial infrastructure and employee retraining opportunities.
As part of the latest $15 million round of funding, West Virginia received $826,400 for a water project in the town of Union, $36,000 to the Southern Appalachia Labor School and $100,000 for groups like Coalfield Development Corporation, WV Hub and the Williamson Health and Wellness Center.
"It is some significant resources for us to get going," said Ben Gilmer, the new director of Refresh Appalachia, which intends to use grant funding to start local agricultural programs on reclaimed surface mines.
Stephanie Tyree, WV Hub deputy director, said her group intends to use grant money to create master plans for communities and to enact main street redevelopment projects.
Tyree said POWER Plus has sparked a lot of interest in communities in West Virginia, but she said future funding really is the "open question right now."
While several county commissions in Kentucky, Virginia and West Virginia have passed resolutions calling for the acceptance of POWER Plus funding, the requested funding has yet to be approved by Congress, which was only able to pass a temporary budget gap measure earlier this fall.
In a conference call Thursday, Obama adviser Jason Walsh said the administration was working to expand funding under POWER Plus, but he said it would require bipartisan support to do so.
"We are waiting for congress to act," Walsh said. "We need congress to work with us."
Rep. Evan Jenkins, R-W.Va., who was in Williamson for the announcement, suggested that he would support a bipartisan effort to fund new development projects in coalfield communities.
"This is very, very competitive. We know the need is great," Jenkins said, who sits on the House Appropriations Committee. "We are struggling, and I'm glad this is only a down-payment."
But Jenkins emphasized that supporting federal funding does not mean he wouldn't fight for the ailing coal industry.
"I am fighting for coal each and every day," Jenkins said. "We can do both, and I am fighting each and every day to do both."
State Democratic Delegate Don Perdue, the director of the Wayne County Economic Development Authority, said the funding offered a path forward for Wayne County and other Appalachian communities.
"You either dream big or you just sleep," Perdue said. "And we have been sleeping for too long."
But all of the federal officials agreed that it would take a grassroots effort to actually run the development programs being funded under POWER Plus. To showcase that reality, they highlighted people like Brandon Dennison, the director of Coalfield Development Corporation.
"Today we are planting the seeds," said Dennison, as he told the crowd about his group's efforts to train workers in Wayne, Lincoln and Mingo counties. "It's going to be a long hard slog, but we're gonna do it."
Reach Andrew Brown at andrew.brown@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-4814 or follow @Andy_Ed_Brown on Twitter.