Boone County’s representative in the West Virginia State Senate has been asked to speak at a summit on the subject of climate change.

Senator Ron D. Stollings, D. Boone, appeared on Tuesday in Washington D.C. at the Empower Consumers Congressional Policy and Lunch yesterday (Tues). A press release said the summit "will convene consumer organizations, trade, labor and agricultural groups and elected officials to discuss pending climate legislation including effective ways to address consumer concerns."

Stollings said the conference would also be used to find ways to generate more influence for Boone County in the upcoming climate change legislation being formulated in Congress.

"I was interviewed on tape recently about the impact of the Waxman-Markey Bill about three months ago," Stollings said. "I must have done a good job because they asked me to be a keynote speaker at the capitol. The issue the overall impact of the proposal," he said. The senator is concerned about a possible doubling of home energy bills if cap and trade legislation proposed in connection with the Obama administration becomes law.

"Once a manufacturing company in our area goes bankrupt due to energy costs we know they don’t tend to come back. We must have the technology for CO2 sequestration perfected and ready to go before we start taxing carbon or the economic fallout will be devastating to everyone who pays for electricity." He added, "When that happens, West Virginia will be the biggest loser."

If cap and trade in it’s current form is passed and signed into law, the impact of losses in coal severance taxes lost to the state will be significant. "If this passes, West Virginia runs the risk of looking like California. We will see cuts in state government services that must end up including law enforcement, education and senior services." Recently, Boone County Administrator Jim Gore revealed that the county commission runs the risk of losing a possible $4.2 million in coal severance taxes. These funds, drawn as a percentage of coal tonnage mined in the county are used for infrastructure costs. They include police cars, senior centers, parks, and the countywide water projects that have been under construction for the past ten years.

"If our county and state get hit with that many cuts the southwest coalfields would end up looking a great deal like West Virginia in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The mass exodus of the work force to places with more jobs would be devastating."

He continued, "If cap and trade is as bad as I think there might not be any place for them to go for jobs."

Senator Stollings said he is working with Gov. Joe Manchin’s office to keep the legislation from passing.

"It is onerous (cap and trade)," the senator said. "We must get our technology in place before we run the risk of wiping out an entire industry. Timing is everything where this is concerned,” he said.