Capon Valley Coalition

From yesterday’s Morgantown Dominion Post:

(Emphasis is ours.)

There’s something about decisions.

Invariably, there’s never a good time for making the big ones. And more often than not the information you base the big ones on, the ones we call turning points, is never complete to the degree that it suggests the answer.

But most of us learn no matter which side of an issue we’re on, when an important decision has to be made, you just do the right thing, and make it. What you can’t do though, is nothing.

Gov. Joe Manchin has been sitting on the fence now, on the proposed Trans-Allegheny Interstate Line project, for so long he must be getting sore.

If it helps him to know, we were also also sitting there for a while. However, we’ve also discovered, in a moment of decision, that this project should not only continue to be challenged, but rejected by the state.

Manchin’s peers, not only in Pennsylvania and Virginia, but in Maryland, Delaware, New York, Arizona and California have also joined the chorus against these interstate power lines.

The premise of the challenges vary, from inclusion of areas as a National Interest Electric Transmission Corridor to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s authority to overrule state utility commissions as unlawful. But they are all on the record.

Manchin is on record for having reservations about FERC’s authority to one-up the state’s Public Service Commission and questioning the benefits of the TrAIL project.

However, he continues to claim he’s waiting for more information and will not join in legal actions or even request a rehearing of the federal Department of Energy’s NIETC designation of 42 counties in West Virginia.

The public hearing portion of the PSC’s role on the six-county TrAIL project ended last week.

It will take up evidentiary hearings in January to gather more data before it makes its decision — probably next spring.

In the meantime Manchin should make up his mind. We would hope he sides with those that oppose this project, however, if he decides otherwise that would at least be some kind of progress. Because there cannot be any progress without decision.

A former aide to President Kennedy years ago wrote, “Consistently wise decisions can only be made by those whose wisdom is constantly challenged.”

It’s possible Manchin is smarting from the likes of us and others who perpetually challenge his wisdom on a host of subjects, but we doubt it.

It’s more likely his earlier position on the TrAIL project, in October 2006, when he wrote the DOE to encourage its designation of NIETC areas in West Virginia has left him reluctant to say too much.

Since then, though, he has modified his position to question the benefits of TrAIL and says he will not support it if there are no benefits.

Truth be known, everyone has been known to procrastinate or create conditions to keep from making decisions.

But as a rule, people in executive positions don’t have that luxury. As most of them learn fast, the wind blows hardest at the top.

This decision may or may not be Manchin’s turning point. Yet, even though whatever specific resolution he reaches might be the wrong one politically, we cannot help but think it will be the right one as our state’s leader.

It’s his decision, but he has to make it.