For generations, West Virginia’s men and women have built America. We’ve laid the pipe, set the steel, wired the plants, poured the concrete, and maintained facilities that kept the lights on. We’ve done it with pride, with skill, and with a simple expectation: that a hard day’s work earns a fair day’s pay and lets us raise our families right here at home.
That’s why natural gas development and new electric generation projects in our state are important to West Virginia’s future. This isn’t about politics. It’s about paychecks.
When a new natural gas-fired power plant breaks ground, it means hundreds of skilled trades jobs for union labor – boilermakers, carpenters, painters, laborers, and more. It means apprenticeship hours for the next generation. It means health benefits are funded and pensions are strengthened. And it means good wages that will be spent in our local restaurants, hardware stores, and car dealerships.
Too often, our members have had to chase work across state lines. I’ve watched good men and women leave before dawn on Monday mornings, not with a lunchbox in hand, but with a suitcase in the truck. They miss Little League games. They miss dance recitals. They miss Sunday dinners with their parents. They do it because they have to when work isn’t here.
Energy projects can change that.
Natural gas electric generation facilities require years of construction labor and long-term maintenance. They create stable, high-wage jobs that can’t be outsourced overseas. And moreover, modern power generation projects are tied to long-term demand from manufacturing, from data centers, from growing industries that need reliable, affordable power.
Union workers are not afraid of innovation. We build it. We maintain it. We make it run safely and efficiently. If West Virginia is going to compete for advanced manufacturing and next-generation industry, we must have dependable power. Natural gas is part of that equation, and our members are ready to do the work.
Supporting these projects doesn’t mean abandoning our past. It means building on it. Our state has always been an energy leader. The skills our tradespeople learned while building and updating our coal plants, pipelines, and industrial facilities are directly transferable to modern gas generation and infrastructure.
At the end of the day, this conversation isn’t about ideology. It’s about whether a skilled insulator in Parkersburg, a roofer in Morgantown, or an operator in Logan County can earn union wages without leaving their family behind. It’s about whether apprentices entering the trades can see a future for themselves in West Virginia, not somewhere else.It’s about whether West Virginia workers can earn union wages without leaving their families behind.
We want our members to drive to a job site close to home, lunchbox on the passenger seat, confident they’ll be back at their own dinner table that night. I want our kids and the apprentices to see a future here and not in another state.
Let’s build the projects.
Let’s power the country.
And most importantly, let’s keep our workers working right here at home.
