A Daily Mail editorial from the Charleston Gazette-Mail
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The two headlines on separate section fronts of Sunday’s print edition of the Gazette-Mail reveal a major problem in West Virginia, and a major part of its solution.
The Oct. 11 front page blared: “Counties plan for $16 million funding cuts” in regard to the state’s public schools.
The front page of the Business section read: “Numerous gas projects mired in federal regulatory process.”
It’s easy to see the solution to the problem described on the front page — loss of tax revenue that affects schools as well as other state agencies — could be helped significantly by resolving the problem described on the business page, a regulatory review process that takes too long, hampers investment and postpones West Virginia’s revenue growth.
Just as West Virginia was sitting on enough coal to power much of the nation’s industrial growth for the past 150 years, the state is situated with enough natural gas to fuel new growth for generations…