Facts over Fears: Scare Tactics Won’t Hide the truth about MARL & Valley Link

A new commercial promoted by West Virginians for Reliable and Affordable Energy, a group represented by former West Virginia’s Senate President Craig Blair, relies on a familiar political tactic: fear. Darkened homes, elderly residents shivering without power, and the clear implication that West Virginians are at risk unless massive new transmission lines are approved.

It is emotionally powerful.

It is also misleading.

The Truth About Power Outages in West Virginia

The facts are straightforward: the vast majority of power outages in West Virginia are caused by storms: high winds, ice, snow, and falling trees. These outages happen on local distribution lines, the lower-voltage lines that run along roads and directly serve homes and businesses.

They are not caused by a lack of electricity, and they are not the result of inadequate long-distance transmission infrastructure.

When storms pass, power is usually restored quickly, often within hours. Longer outages occur when trees repeatedly strike lines or when crews must reach remote, mountainous locations, not because West Virginia lacks generating capacity.

Real Solutions Are Being Ignored

If the concern were truly about protecting seniors and vulnerable residents, the solutions would be obvious and effective:

·         More aggressive tree trimming along distribution rights-of-way

·         Hardening of local poles and equipment

·         Selective undergrounding of distribution lines where feasible

These measures directly reduce outages and improve reliability. They are proven, local solutions. Yet they receive little attention because they do not support the push for billion-dollar transmission projects.

West Virginia Has a Power Surplus

West Virginia is not facing an electricity shortage. The state produces more power than it consumes. Claims that our grid is on the brink of failure without new transmission lines simply do not match reality.

Fear is being used to blur the line between local reliability issues and regional energy export projects.

What MARL and Valley Link Really Do

The Mid-Atlantic Resiliency Link (MARL) and Valley Link proposals are not designed to prevent storm-related outages in West Virginia. They are high-voltage corridors intended to move large quantities of electricity across the state to meet the growing energy demands of Northern Virginia, particularly data centers.

These lines do not meaningfully:

·         Reduce storm-related outages

·         Improve local distribution reliability

·         Benefit West Virginia ratepayers

Instead, they place the environmental, property, and visual burdens on West Virginia communities while serving out-of-state interests.

Fear Is Not Energy Policy

Using images of elderly residents losing power to justify projects that will not help them is not leadership - it is propaganda to manipulate you to support projects that in the end will harm you and West Virginia. West Virginians deserve honesty, transparency, and solutions grounded in facts.

Shame on Craig Blair and those willing to use scare tactics to serve out-of-state interests. West Virginia can protect its people and its land—but only if fear is replaced with truth.