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The Debate Over Virginia's Coal Country Continues

Steve Helber / AP, File

Republican lawmakers and Democratic Governor Terry McAuliffe are at odds over the best way to help Virginia’s struggling coal country. That issue is likely to be a sticking point when members of the General Assembly return to Richmond for the upcoming veto session.

Southwest Virginia is full of unemployed coal miners. Those are people Dwayne Miller at the Lenowisco Planning District Commission likes to think of as employable engineers and electricians — people who have trade skills.

"What can we do to get that workforce to where it’s marketable to advanced manufacturing type companies, and we’ve noticed there seems to be a large group of those type of advanced type industries in European markets.”

But who is going to head out to Europe and Asia to do that kind of international marketing? Republican Delegate Terry Kilgore wants to spend half a million dollars to put together a special team of experienced international marketers to bring foreign companies to Southwest Virginia and put those former coal miners to work. But Democratic Governor Terry McAuliffe stripped that initiative from the budget, saying he doesn’t want to duplicate existing economic development efforts. Kilgore hopes the governor will change his mind.

“By doing this, we would have a lot of ribbons for him to cut, a lot of checks to give out.”

Lawmakers are likely to restore funds for the international marketing. And Kilgore says he and his colleagues from Southwest Virginia will redouble their efforts to make sure the governor knows exactly what’s at stake for coal country.