By CHARLES YOUNG
The Exponent Telegram
MAIDSVILLE, W.Va. — U.S. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry told West Virginians they have a friend in President Donald Trump while touring a power plant near Morgantown Thursday morning.
(Photo by Charles Young)
“The people of West Virginia, who make their living in the coal mines and running plants like this, they need to understand something. They have a friend, a proponent, in the White House in Donald Trump.”
Accompanied by Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., and Rep. David McKinley, R-W.Va., Perry spent more than four hours touring the Longview Power Plant in Maidsville.
The purpose of the visit was to learn first-hand about modern coal technology, Perry said.
“This was a very enlightening stop,” he said. “This technology, this ability to deliver a secure and economical and environmentally good source of energy is really important.”
Perry told those assembled at the plant that Trump highly values the coal industry and understands its importance in the country’s future.
“I think that’s what President Trump was talking about when he was discussing getting the coal industry back,” he said. “I think he intuitively understood something, and that is that coal can be used in a responsible way, in an economically powerful way and in a way that makes America more secure.”
If it weren’t for coal, much of the East Coast would struggle to find affordable sources of energy, Perry said.
“You lose your electrical power and you have chaos,” Perry said. “The northeastern part of this country and the massive population centers that are there, were we to lose our ability to run our hospitals, to operate our ports, to keep commerce going, that is devastating to this country.”
Perry said he would like to see more high-efficiency, low- emission plants like Longview constructed in the future.
“This plant and plants — I won’t say those like it because there aren’t a lot like it — is incredibly important to the future of this country,” he said.
The energy policies of the Obama administration limited the growth of the coal industry and restricted the options for growth, Perry said.
“The last eight years, we’ve seen an administration that sometimes I think they used their whole hand, not just their thumb, to affect the power portfolio in America. Those days are over,” he said.
“I think what we’ve learned is that no one is building these,” the Republican senator from West Virginia said. “Because the last eight years have been very tough for the coal business and the concept of a new coal plant.”
By constructing similar plants to Longview, the country has an opportunity to regain its place as major player in worldwide energy production, said McKinley.
“We’re going to be able to develop that kind of technology to use to be the dominant force in the (world), where we retain that mantel of leadership that we lost several years ago,” he said. “I think the genesis is going to be here at Longview.”
The Maidsville facility shows that it’s possible to construct power plants in a way that is both responsible and profitable, said Manchin, the state’s lone Democrat in Congress.
“We want a balance between the economy and the environment; we’re not going to throw caution to the winds,” Manchin said. “We can do that and this plant shows it can be done and done well.”
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