The federal government will spend $39 million in grants for struggling coal communities as part of President Barack Obama’s economic development initiatives.
Through 29 grants, totaling $38.8 million, communities throughout Appalachia will receive grants for infrastructure, the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) announced Wednesday. These awards comprise more than half of Obama’s $65 million 2016 budget for the Partnerships for Opportunity and Workforce and Economic Revitalization (POWER) Initiative.
“The projects and awards we are here to celebrate today help communities persevere and flourish as they deal with the challenges presented by the coal economy,” Jay Williams, U.S. Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Economic Development, said in a statement. “POWER invests in jobs and workers, and develops and implements strategies and projects that can help transform these respective regions, states, and our nation.”(RELATED: Major Coal Company Warns It May Slash 80 Percent Of Workforce, Blames Obama)
The biggest award, a total of $7,474,100, will go to the University of Pikeville in Kentucky, to purchase equipment for the Kentucky College of Optometry. Infrastructure projects include $2.5 million to build public water pipelines for a county airport in Mercer County, W. Va., and $1.6 million for water service to another another West Virginia airport that sits atop a former coal mine. (RELATED: The Stunning Effects Of Obama’s War On Coal, In One Chart)
“These investments are going to make a difference in coal-impacted Appalachian communities,” Earl Gohl, co-chair of ARC told reporters in a press conference.
Many of the grants will go to innovation centers, for example, the $2.2 million entrepreneurship program that “will educate the next generation of Appalachia’s workforce to create their own businesses to drive the local economy,” and more than $2 million to “expand the fast-track retraining and entrepreneurial technical assistance services targeted to dislocated coal workers.”
One grant of $1.4 million will “expand tourism-related employment and business” and draw visitors to the Hatfield McCoy Trail, which runs through Kentucky, Virginia and West Virginia. The award also “provides for the deployment of a coordinated marketing effort, which will increase the region-wide economic impact of the Trails by $13,000,000 per year.”
The White House estimates that 3,418 jobs will be created through the grants, and that $66 million will be “leveraged through investments from other public and private partners” as a result of Wednesday’s grants.(RELATED: Obama Spends $14 Million To Retrain Laid-Off Coal Miners For Lower Paying Jobs)
Grants come from the U.S. Department of Labor, the U.S. Department of Commerce, and the Appalachian Regional Commission, which receives funding directly from Congress.
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