Published: February 20, 2009 07:49 am      

Manchin’s energy plan offered on Senate floor

CHARLESTON — Just because gas prices are about half of last summer’s zenith is no reason to grow lazy on the matter of alternative fuels, Senate President Earl Ray Tomblin says.

Tomblin joined Senate Minority Leader Don Caruth, R-Mercer, in offering a key component in Gov. Joe Manchin’s plan for this session — non-traditional fuel sources.

“We talk about this every time the price of fuel is up,” Tomblin, D-Logan, said after Thursday’s floor session.

“Everyone wrings their hands and says, ‘We’ve got to do something.’ When the price goes back down, everybody kind of gets lazy again.

“This time, with the scare of high prices we’ve gone through the last couple of years, we really need to be serious about looking at alternative fuels.”

Prices at the pump soared to a year-long high of $4.19 a gallon last summer in Beckley but since have fallen to about half that amount.

Manchin told lawmakers he was setting two benchmarks for renewable and alternative sources of fuel — 10 percent of all power sold to West Virginians by 2015 and one-fourth by 2025.

“Obviously, we’ve got to look at all sources of fuel,” Tomblin said.

And that means nuclear is on the table, although the Senate Energy, Industry and Mining Committee dished off a bill a day earlier by Sen. Brooks McCabe, D-Kanawha, to rescind the effective ban on such plants.

McCabe suggested no such plant likely would come to fruition for at least a decade, but the state needs to be in position to allow for the planning of one. An article in state code prevents them if there is no certified site for dumping of radioactive waste.

“Not that I would ever expect us to build a nuclear power plant in West Virginia,” Tomblin said.

“It’s hard enough to build them in states that already allow it.”

Even so, Tomblin said nuclear power should remain an option — a stance Manchin shared this week in a meeting with The Register-Herald editorial board.

“Having that ban in place does not put us in a very good light among our sister states,” the Senate leader said.