The Legislature already has a special session about taxes and abortion policy on pause, but Gov. Jim Justice has called a new one to consider bills on economic policy and roads funding.
A Saturday night statement from the governor says the special session will start at 1:30 p.m. Monday. The earlier special session that has been on hiatus was adjourned until the call of the Senate president and the House speaker.
Speaker Roger Hanshaw, R-Clay, had already said delegates would meet for a few minutes in special session on Monday to name conferees to a committee intended to work out differences in an abortion bill with senators. However, Senate President Craig Blair has said that body would not resume to consider abortion policy until consensus is more clear.
So the new special session is somehow on top of that special session, which is probably what is extraordinary about it.
Legislators will be in Charleston anyway for regularly-scheduled interim meetings to learn about policies and the activities of state agencies.
The governor’s new call includes two bills to be considered.
One would establish a “Certified Industrial Business Expansion Development Program” within the Department of Economic Development. It would encourage high impact industrial plants and facilities involving electricity generated from renewable sources.
The policy appears to be aimed at the needs of a specific business or businesses.
“We have an announcement that’s right around the horizon that’s bigger than big,” Justice said during a briefing on Friday.
The second bill would leverage West Virginia’s strong state budget trends by transferring $150 million of general revenue to the State Road Fund for secondary roads maintenance.
Asked by MetroNews during a Friday briefing about the possibility of allocating additional funds for roads, Justice expressed enthusiasm but did not specify at the time. Justice described a long-term emphasis of his administration to improve and maintain the roads.
“Yes, we need to do more, and absolutely you’ll be seeing that real, real, real soon,” Justice said. “You will be seeing more of an effort from my side and hopefully more of an effort from the Legislature’s side. They’ve been great in following suit and helping to really, really, really make a real commitment to continue to do anything and everything we can to make more and more repairs, especially to secondary roads.”