Rep. Riley Moore, R-W.Va., held a jar of brown water from the home of McDowell County resident Teldia Haywood in the House Appropriations Committee room Wednesday as he pleaded for clean water.
“This right here, this jar, is water that comes out of a faucet in West Virginia,” Moore said.
As Moore made his pitch for $50 million in funds — $200 million less than a proposal he said he’d champion — his staff distributed jugs and bottles of water, each sampled from a tap in McDowell County.
He said the people of Southern West Virginia, who provided coal to power the rise of America, are owed clean water.
“All they’re asking for is clean water. They’re simply asking to be seen as citizens. Fellow citizens who deserve to be able to pour a clean glass of water for their children and their grandchildren,” Moore said.
Despite the samples, despite the plea, the House Appropriations Committee said no.
They voted his amendment down via voice vote, which means their names aren’t recorded with their position.
Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, said the request wasn’t appropriate because it didn’t go through the Interior, Environment and Related Agencies subcommittee, which he chairs.
“I’m not disputing that West Virginia has water infrastructure needs,” he said. “A proposal like this needs to be properly vetted.”
However, Moore and his fellow West Virginia Representative Carol Miller had requested $250 million be earmarked for West Virginia. Simpson’s committee chose not to include that in their version of the bill last month.
Simpson said he would work with Moore as the budget bill moves forward.
Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-Maine, the ranking member on Simpson’s committee, suggested Moore should try to go a different route to get the money.
“My colleague from New Jersey will be proposing an amendment to increase money for state revolving funds benefiting all of our states, and I encourage the gentleman from West Virginia, and everyone here, to support that amendment,” she said. “I oppose this amendment.”
But the committee also rejected, via voice vote, the amendment to increase money for water and sewer funds offered by Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman, D-N.J.
The Rev. Caitlin Ware, who has helped organize activism around water issues in the Southern Coalfields, said lawmakers failed to help their fellow Americans.
“They recognize a region of people that doesn’t have water, and that it’s the worst water in America, and they still chose to do nothing,” she said.
Ware, and other organizers with the West Virginia Rivers Coalition, are now looking to Sen. Jim Justice and Sen. Shelley Moore Capito to secure funding for the coalfields.
Haywood provided Moore the jar he displayed to the committee when the congressman and a few staff members came to her house last week. She said the lawmakers need to act now.
She said, “They need to do something about this, because so far, nobody’s been doing their job.”
