March 10, 2026
For the first time in decades, West Virginia had a clear path forward. Communities devastated by coal’s collapse were getting a genuine shot at economic renewal. Former miners were training for good-paying manufacturing jobs. Shuttered factories were coming back to life. Real investment was flowing into places that had been abandoned and forgotten.
Then Washington killed it.
According to ReImagine Appalachia’s latest analysis, the clean energy transformation that promised to revitalize West Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Kentucky has been deliberately dismantled. More than 61,000 jobs across the region — 67% of what was projected — are now at serious risk. West Virginia, which desperately needed this industrial renaissance, is paying the price for Washington’s betrayal.
Read ReImagine Appalachia and the Keystone Research Center’s most recent economic report here.
Look at what we’ve lost. Between 2021 and the third quarter of 2024, clean energy investment in the region climbed steadily, reaching $4.7 billion at its peak. By the first quarter of 2025, that momentum had completely evaporated and continued to flatline throughout the year. The significant decline was largely caused by decreased deployment of technologies that reduce greenhouse gas emissions, plummeting by 65% from $1.27 billion to just $445 million. This wasn’t a market correction. This was the Trump administration systematically gutting the programs that were finally giving West Virginia communities a fighting chance at economic revival.
The Inflation Reduction Act and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act weren’t handouts — they were strategic investments in rebuilding America’s industrial capacity in the places that needed it most. Since 2022, our region attracted $9.85 billion for energy and industrial projects, $18.8 billion in clean energy manufacturing, and $22.3 billion in consumer adoption. This meant paychecks for West Virginia workers, opportunities for West Virginia communities, and hope for West Virginia families.
Consider what’s happening right now in Taylor County. Battery manufacturer Sparkz planned to transform a defunct glass factory into a modern manufacturing facility producing batteries for commercial vehicles. The project combined $9.8 million in federal support with private investment to create 75 new jobs. But here’s what made it truly special: former coal miners would be trained at a United Mine Workers of America Career Center to work at the factory, thanks to a labor-management agreement between the UMWA and Sparkz. The company even signed an agreement with the United Auto Workers pledging not to interfere with organizing efforts.
This was exactly the kind of transition West Virginia needed — coal miners moving into advanced manufacturing jobs with union protections and good wages. The Department of Energy awarded the grant in 2024 through its Office of Manufacturing and Energy Supply Chains.
Then, the funding got slow-walked. Now leaked Department of Energy documents indicate that the grant will be canceled entirely.
Let that sink in. A project specifically designed to help coal communities transition to the industries of tomorrow, with training programs for displaced miners and union partnerships to ensure good jobs, was killed by an administration that claims to care about forgotten workers in places like West Virginia.
This isn’t an isolated incident. It’s part of a systematic pattern. The “One Big Beautiful Bill” passed earlier this year finished what the Trump administration started, eliminating what remained of federal clean energy support. It drove up electricity costs for West Virginia families, wiped out job opportunities wholesale, and handed America’s competitive advantage in batteries and advanced manufacturing to China and Europe.
What makes this so infuriating is that West Virginia was finally beginning to win again. After decades of watching factories close and young people leave, we were attracting real investment and creating real opportunities. We proved that West Virginia workers could excel in next-generation industries, that our communities could compete for the jobs that will define the global economy for the next fifty years.
These federal programs targeted places like Taylor County that were devastated by economic shifts and received nothing in return. For once, policy was designed to rebuild what had been destroyed, to honor the contributions coal miners and their families made to American prosperity by investing in their futures.
Now the people who promised to stand with working Americans are systematically dismantling the only lifeline many West Virginia communities had.
The clean energy economy isn’t some abstract idea or future possibility — it’s here now. West Virginia either fights for its place in that economy or watches from the sidelines as other states and other countries claim the opportunities that should belong to us. Whether that means forcing Washington to honor its commitments or finding every possible state and local resource to compensate for federal abandonment, West Virginia cannot surrender what we’ve already built and what we still stand to gain.
Our workers deserve better. Our communities deserve better. West Virginia deserves better.