West Virginia Secretary of State Natalie Tennant (left) and Rep. Shelley Moore Capito (right) discuss coal and health care on Thursday at The Greenbrier resort during the West Virginia Chamber of Commerce’s annual business summit. The event was moderated by F. Scott Rotruck, director of energy for the Spilman Thomas & Battle law firm and a former vice president of Chesapeake Energy.
WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS, W.Va. — Several hundred West Virginia business leaders, politicians and lobbyists spent Thursday morning at The Greenbrier resort, drinking coffee, eating apple cinnamon crepes and listening to congressional candidates promise to fight the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
“My first priority when I get to the United States Senate will be to stop the attacks on the energy industry here in this state,” said Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, the Republican candidate for the Senate. “I have fought to stop the president’s war on coal — and it is a war on coal.”
“When the EPA refused to come to West Virginia, I took our fight, and our voice, to Pittsburgh,” said Secretary of State Natalie Tennant, the Democratic candidate for the Senate. “I testified before the EPA hearings and issued a direct challenge to President Obama: I said don’t attack us with regulations.”
“Please explain your vote for a carbon tax and your defense for the EPA,” said state Sen. Evan Jenkins, the Republican candidate for the House of Representatives in West Virginia’s Southern, Third District. “You would not believe all of the support from some of the most anti-coal advocates there are in this country, funding his campaign.”
Jenkins was addressing his opponent, Democratic Rep. Nick Rahall, who declined an invitation to attend the event.
Rahall’s campaign manager said he spent the morning in Mullens, discussing the Coalfields Expressway, a highway that will connect the West Virginia Turnpike with U.S. 23 in Virginia.
Jenkins said Rahall repeatedly has declined an open invitation to debate.
While the event was not exactly a debate, it was the first time during the campaign that Tennant and Capito have appeared on a stage together…