The people of the coalfields and other communities of Southeastern Ohio, Eastern Kentucky, West Virginia and Pennsylvania, the heart of Appalachia, need a transformational investment. Our entire nation needs a major investment in infrastructure.
Both can happen if Congress acts.
President Biden has proposed the American Jobs Plan. The plan includes traditional, green and human infrastructure investments and represents a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for our nation.
Biden has put forth a plan calling for cleaning up and reclaiming abandoned mine lands, plugging thousands of abandoned dangerous oil and gas wells, modernizing the electric grid, creating universal broadband access, updating our transportation system, repairing dams, locks, tunnels and levees, and more.
To ensure infrastructure investments benefit the people of Appalachia, a diverse coalition of labor and community leaders, ReImagine Appalachia, has proposed conditions, including the following, for projects:
1. Project labor agreements that would ensure good wages and benefits;
2. The targeting of new jobs to displaced coal miners and others who have been left behind; and
3. The creation of community benefit agreements to make sure that projects benefit the people of host neighborhoods.
Congress: Vote yes on the American Jobs Plan and deliver for Appalachia and all of America.
Donald R. Walko Jr.
Sewickley
The writer, a former state representative and Allegheny County judge, is a volunteer with ReImagine Appalachia.