November 2017, Vol. 244, No. 11

Features

Bringing Manufacturing Jobs Back to America

A little over two years ago at an energy conference in Abingdon, VA, Gov. Terry McAuliffe was clearly excited about planned pipelines that would bring Marcellus and Utica natural gas to eastern Virginia. He declared, “We will use the natural gas in these pipelines to bring manufacturing jobs to eastern Virginia.” Being from West Virginia that hit me like a ton of bricks. That is West Virginia gas that Virginia will be using! So why can’t West Virginia use its abundant natural gas to create manufacturing and petrochemical jobs there instead of sending it all out of state as it did for decades with timber and coal? About the same time as the governor’s speech, a group of business and economi