Letter from Shelley
Friends and Colleagues,
End of year legislation kept Congress busy this week as we considered measures to authorize funding for our troops and intelligence community, while also continuing a heated debate about the alternative minimum tax.
Supporting Our Troops
Congress this week passed legislation to authorize funding for important programs that support our nation’s military. The bipartisan bill will give our service members a raise and create a Yellow Ribbon Reintegration Program to support soldiers and their families throughout the military deployment cycle.
The House also authorized funding to ensure our troops on the ground in Iraq have the most up-to-date mine resistant (MRAP) vehicles to keep them safe and protected from road-side bombs.
Need for Human Intelligence Gathering
With the development of new technology and communication techniques, it’s become increasingly important that we have intelligence operatives on the ground to help combat terrorist threats. Much of our most valuable intelligence information comes from human intelligence gathering.
Yet, this week the House passed legislation that is likely to enhance bureaucratic inefficiencies at the expense of our human intelligence capabilities. I opposed this bill because it would hinder our ability to effectively execute our intelligence efforts, and I will continue to work to make human intelligence a top priority.
AMT Tax Relief Still Lingering
Despite debate that has stretched over weeks, House Leadership has continued to oppose a clean bill to prevent more than 46,000 West Virginians from being struck by the alternative minimum tax (AMT). Instead, they’ve chosen to include unnecessary tax hikes in legislation that is presumably designed to prevent a tax increase.
I sponsored legislation to address the alternative minimum tax earlier this year, and now the Senate has passed similar legislation to prevent more than 20 million Americans from being hit with this burdensome tax. I will continue to push the House to follow the Senate’s lead on this issue and pass needed tax relief for West Virginia families.
Sincerely,
Member of Congress
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Capito Meets With St. Albans Firefighters
CHARLESTON, December 7, 2007 – Rep. Capito meets with Eric Mitchell, the St. Albans Fire Chief, and two firefighters from Malawi, Africa who are in West Virginia on a firefighter exchange program. Congresswoman Capito had an opportunity to learn about the firefighting challenges they face in Malawi where two fire trucks and 65 firefighters serve a population of more than one million people.
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IN CASE YOU MISSED IT...
MATRIC Opens its Doors to Dow Workers
Charleston Gazette
Sarah K. Winn
December 11, 2007
Technologist George Bernath has been working at Dow Chemical Co. for 12 years. He expected the Dow layoffs announced last week, but he didn’t think they would be so soon.
“We have been waiting for the other shoe to drop for a while,” he said Monday during an open house with the Mid-Atlantic Technology Research and Innovation Center (MATRIC). “It would be a shame for the state to lose that kind of knowledge.”
Bernath and other Dow employees, along with local and state economic development leaders and elected officials, joined MATRIC on Monday for the open house.
MATRIC has committed to giving displaced Dow employees a new working home, but isn’t sure how many, just quite yet, officials with the nonprofit center said.
“The future for West Virginia is not dark. It’s not bleak. It’s not over here,” said Keith Pauley, president and chief executive officer at MATRIC.
MATRIC was formed in 2003 and conducts chemical research for contract clients and for commercial startups that are spun off into independent businesses. It operates in a South Charleston Technology Park building left vacant by Dow.
Less than a week ago, Dow announced that it would cut 150 research and development jobs from its Union Carbide Corp. division at the South Charleston Technology Park by the end of the 2009. The cuts are a part of a massive Dow downsizing since 2000 and will leave just 550 Dow employees in the state.
Many of the former Dow and Union Carbide scientists have left the Kanawha Valley, but MATRIC has hired more than 40 others.
Additional Excerpt: Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., was on hand for the MATRIC open house, lending her voice to the company’s possibilities in the Kanawha Valley.
“Dow and Union Carbide are really part of the heart and soul of this community,” she said. “Someday, everyone will have a MATRIC story.”
To read the full text of this story, click here.
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