MADISON — Hundreds of people will be converging on the Madison and Danville area starting Saturday at 10 a.m. as the 2011 West Virginia Coal Festival begins with the Teen, Miss and Chidren’s Pageant at the Madison Civic Center.

The 18th annual festival is expected to bring an economic boost to the area, according to local economic development office.

WILLIAMSON - Adams Fork Energy, the coal-to-gasoline facility planned for Mingo County, has gone through the permitting process, and is proceeding according to schedule, Project Manager Randall Harris told the Mingo County Redevelopment Authority.

When constructed, the facility will convert 7,500 tons of regional coal into premium grade ultraclean gasoline, producing 18,000 barrels per day (756,000 gallons).

The project is a post-mine-land-use project of the Mingo County Redevelopment Authority (MCRA) and represents a $3 billion investment by its parent company, TransGas Development.

 

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY): “We need to quit doing what we've been doing. It's obvious that the stimulus, borrowing all that money and spending it basically on government employees, didn't do any good. If you talk to business people, and Bill Daley, the president's chief of staff, did recently, you find out their biggest complaint is over-regulation. The federal government with that stimulus money hired a quarter of a million new employees. These people are busily at work trying to regulate every aspect of American life -- in health care, financial services, through the Environmental Protection Agency -- really sort of bureaucrats on steroids that are freezing up the private sector and making it very difficult, Bob, for them to grow and expand. You know, you've seen the reports that they've got $2 trillion in cash. The reason they're not investing that in hiring more people is the government has made it very expensive to expand employment.”

WHITESVILLE, W.Va. -- The new owner of the southern West Virginia mine where 29 men died in an explosion last year is donating $250,000 toward construction of a memorial.

McKinley made a special presentation in Ohio County on West Virginia's 148th birthday.

WHEELING -- Monday, if there was a cake for the State of West Virginia, it would include 148 birthday candles.

U.S. Rep. David Mc Kinley, R-Ohio, was in Wheeling to celebrate. McKinley was at Oglebay Resort Monday morning discussing his current efforts to slow down the environmental protection agency. The congressman said coal, energy, and security must be maintained but so should good paying mountain state jobs.