CHARLESTON -- The future appears sunny for advocates of home-based solar energy systems.
State lawmakers overturned Gov. Joe Manchin's veto of a bill giving a tax credit to homeowners who install solar panels on their homes. It was one of more than a dozen bills that lawmakers overturned on the first day of the extended session May 26.
There were no worries going into the extended session for Mike McKechnie, president of Mountain View Builders of Berkeley Springs, which installs renewable energy systems in homes. Like most of the other bills vetoed, Manchin had struck down the solar power bill because of a language error in the text of the bill and had asked lawmakers to correct the problem and send it back.
"We knew it was coming," he said a few days before the session. "And apparently it was a technicality."
The bill would allow homeowners to deduct 30 percent of the cost of installing a solar energy system, up to $2,000, off their state income taxes. McKechnie said he already has seen more interest from customers as a result of the state incentive and a similar federal incentive, and he has hired one full-time and one part-time employee because of that business.
Lawmakers gathered at the Capitol to complete the work they had begun earlier in the year. That work primarily was taking action on the governor's proposed budget, but it also included overturning several vetoes.
Most of the bills Manchin vetoed were struck down because of technical problems. He asked lawmakers to overturn the vetoes and then repair the technical problems before passing them into law.
Manchin had at one point vetoed 22 bills, although that had been whittled down to four by May 27. Among the resurrected bills were proposed laws allowing for a simple majority vote to determine whether Kanawha County can enact metro government, prohibiting gas chambers in animal euthanasia and making providing false information to the secretary of state a misdemeanor.
One controversial veto left standing was a bill increasing state reimbursement rates to mental health providers. Manchin has said he will instead dedicate $12 million in state and federal funds for mental health care.
