Steven Allen Adams EXPO — Rep. David McKinley tells attendees of the West Virginia Construction and Design Exposition how the hard infrastructure bill will benefit the state.

CHARLESTON — Rep. David McKinley received a round of applause Wednesday from contractors, architects and engineers for his vote in favor of a hard infrastructure package that is already beginning to pay off for West Virginia.

McKinley, R-W.Va., was a keynote speaker Wednesday morning for the annual West Virginia Construction and Design Exposition at the Charleston Coliseum and Convention Center. The two-day event is organized by the Contractors Association of West Virginia.

McKinley, one of two licensed engineers in Congress and founder of McKinley Architecture and Engineer, has been a member of the Contractors Association since the 1970s. Now in his sixth term in the House of Representatives since winning election in 2011, McKinley is seeking his first term in the new northern 2nd Congressional District.

McKinley was among 13 Republicans who supported the $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act in November, joining U.S. Sens. Joe Manchin and Shelley Moore Capito who negotiated and supported the bill.

Neither 3rd District Rep. Carol Miller nor 2nd District Rep. Alex Mooney, McKinley’s opponent in the May 13 Republican primary for the new 2nd District, supported the bill.

West Virginia is expected to receive between $6 billion and $8 billion from the bill for hard infrastructure projects, including billions of dollars in investments for broadband expansion, roads and bridges, public transportation, clean water and wastewater, and clean energy research and environmental mitigation.

McKinley said he waited for former president Barack Obama to unveil an infrastructure plan that never happened. Former president Donald Trump supported infrastructure investment, but was stymied by a Democratic majority in the House under Speaker Nancy Pelosi, R-Calif. After congressional Republicans were able to successfully separate President Joe Biden’s social spending programs out of the infrastructure bill, McKinley said this was the best chance to get a package through that would benefit West Virginia.

“I’m an engineer. I’m going to get something done. We identified a problem, we came up with a solution, and we implemented it,” McKinley said. “People universally across West Virginia and across this country will support an infrastructure bill. Just make sure that there’s nothing tied into it about social spending.”

One of the biggest issues McKinley continues to face is educating the public about the hard infrastructure bill and explaining that Biden’s Build Back Better social spending plan that failed at the beginning of the year is a separate bill. Mooney has attacked McKinley’s vote on the hard infrastructure bill, conflating the two bills as one and the same and blaming the infrastructure bill for the rise in inflation.

“It’s frustrating,” McKinley said. “After all these months of talking about it, people still think that Nancy Pelosi has been able to work some social spending in. There is no social spending in there, and because of that, that’s how we separated the two out. And then we were able to have a strong bipartisan vote in the House to pass that. And we had the same thing in the Senate.”

Prior to McKinley’s speech, attendees heard updates from the state Department of Economic Development and representatives of North Carolina-based steel manufacturer Nucor and Canada-based electric vehicle manufacturer GreenPower. Nucor said it has purchased the equipment needed to produce steel and plans to start construction of its electric arc furnace facility in Mason County this summer. GreenPower said it plans to start rolling out electric school buses from its South Charleston facility by the end of 2022.

McKinley said these announcements were great, along with continued expansion at other major manufactures, such as Hino Motors in Mineral Wells, Mitsubishi acquiring Bombardier’s CRJ series aircraft program in Bridgeport, and Northrup Grumman expanding its footprint in the Potomac Highlands. He said these economic development announcements would not be possible without infrastructure.

“I’ve never seen so much economic revitalization, the noise that is going on, the encouragement in West Virginia … something is happening here,” McKinley said. “Even with all this, this is what leads back to the infrastructure. All this would not be possible if we didn’t have infrastructure and that’s what’s been important.”

Nathaniel Order, president of the Contractors Association and Orders Construction Co. in St. Albans, said McKinley’s vote for the hard infrastructure was important and brave.

“Unfortunately, Congressman McKinley has been criticized by some for voting for the infrastructure bill,” Orders said. “For those in this room and those in the exhibit halls, we know all too well the importance of that legislation and what it will do for the West Virginians who do not have access to safe roads, clean water, and functional sewer systems. For West Virginia to attract prestigious businesses like Nucor and GreenPower. We have to have infrastructure like that.

(Adams can be contacted at sadams@newsandsentinel.com)