Public Comments

Please support bill 927

Support for HB 5353

Policy Suggestions to Strengthen HB 5353

1. Strong Fee Transparency Requirements

2. Consumer Education and Fraud Prevention

3. Avoid Overly Restrictive Access Limits

4. Maintain a Balanced Approach to Innovation

Additional Policy Recommendations

5. Suggested Amendment: Clear Fee Disclosure Language

6. Suggested Amendment: Fraud Warning Requirements

7. Policy Precedent from Other States

• mandatory fee disclosures
• transaction transparency requirements
• anti‑fraud warnings and consumer education
• licensing through existing money transmission frameworks

Conclusion

• I am in favor of Senate Bill 927. Bees are so crucial to our environment in many ways.  Pollination is essential for many plants to produce fruit and seeds and to also the continuation of plant life.  Honey is also a valuable resource for antioxidant, wound healing, soothing sore throats, and improving heart health.

Public Comment on HB 5060

Support for HB 5060

Policy Considerations and Suggestions

1. Ensure Consumer Protection Without Blocking Access

2. Encourage Regulatory Clarity for Businesses

3. Recognize the Broader Digital Infrastructure Opportunity

4. Maintain Flexibility as Technology Evolves

Conclusion

Honey Bees are beneficial to everyone.

• To Standing Committee on the Judiciary

Need help government assistance pay some debt off

West Virginia needs to be one of the first to protect the bees . Start banning weed killers . Bees are life for humans . With out bees we are in major trouble . We need to start making insensitive for people to start bee keeping . Maybe even. A tax credit for every hive up to 5 .  Honey bees keep us feed , we need to protect the them !

Senate Bill 927 needs to pass!  Beekeepers are a diverse group of people, democrats, republicans, and Independents and most importantly motivated voters. Beekeepers are farms and their bees provide the essence of life to the plants we eat and the beautiful flowers the decorate our landscapes and homes.

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Oppose SB 392

I rise in opposition to House Bill 5687.

For more than a century, West Virginia’s economy has been built around the extraction of our natural resources. Coal companies have generated enormous wealth from these mountains. But too often, that wealth did not stay in the communities where it was created. Profits flowed to corporate headquarters and distant investors while the people of West Virginia were left to deal with the long-term consequences.

Those consequences are still with us today: damaged landscapes, polluted streams, struggling communities, and an economy that was never allowed to fully diversify.

House Bill 5687 would once again cut taxes for the coal industry. Supporters may claim this will increase production or bring back coal jobs, but the reality is that market forces, automation, and changes in the global energy economy—not state tax policy—drive coal production today. A tax cut will not reverse those trends.

What this bill will do is remove hundreds of millions of dollars from the state budget over time.

That revenue should be used to strengthen the public services that West Virginians depend on—maintaining our roads and bridges, investing in public schools, ensuring safe drinking water, protecting our natural resources, and supporting the communities that powered this country for generations.

West Virginians are tired of being treated as disposable while our resources are extracted and the wealth leaves the state. If companies profit from our mountains, then they should also contribute to repairing the damage and supporting the communities that made those profits possible.

This legislature should be working to rebuild West Virginia’s economy and invest in its people—not continuing a cycle where the state weakens its own revenue base while expecting communities to make do with less.

For those reasons, I urge you to reject House Bill 5687.

West Virginia currently ranks 49th in the nation in median household income. That fact alone should frame this entire conversation.

Senate Bill 392 proposes a 10% reduction in the state income tax. For the average West Virginia household, that reduction would amount to less than $30 a month. That is the reality of what this policy delivers to most families.

At the same time, the bill removes roughly $250 million in revenue from the state budget.

That $250 million matters far more than a $30 monthly tax cut.

West Virginians are not asking the government for symbolic gestures. They are asking for the basic services that the government is supposed to provide under the social contract between citizens and the state.

We should be using that revenue to fix our roads and bridges, maintain clean and reliable water systems, strengthen our public schools, and protect the natural resources that define this state. Those investments are what actually improve the quality of life for the people who live here.

Instead, we continue to see partisan politics driving policy decisions that weaken the state’s ability to meet those responsibilities. Every time we cut the revenue that funds public services, we make it harder to address the very problems that people across West Virginia raise every day.

West Virginia is not New Jersey, and we should stop trying to import political talking points and ideological experiments that do not reflect the realities of our state.

Our state ranks near the bottom in income, population growth, and economic opportunity. The solution to those problems is not to continue ravaging the limited revenue we have available to invest in our communities.

If we want West Virginia to grow and thrive, we must invest in the things that make communities livable and competitive: education, infrastructure, public health, and environmental stewardship.

Those are not partisan priorities. They are the government's basic responsibilities.

For those reasons, I urge the legislature to reject SB 392 and focus instead on strengthening the foundations that West Virginians rely on every day.

Thank you for your time.

Please vote to invest these dollars in public services that help children, families, and workers thrive.  We do not need tax cuts that will only help the wealthiest among us, and will cut funding from important programs for families in West Virginia.  

I support SB927 with no amendments or weakened language. This bill addresses issues relevant to beekeepers and residents. It should be solely regulated by the Department of Agriculture and not outlying municipalities, which can cause a lot of conflict, and be overly burdensome to beekeepers. Passing this bill as it stands is GOOD for West Virginia.

To the Members of the Judiciary Committee,

My name is Crysta Black, and I am writing today not just as an advocate for justice reform in West Virginia, but as someone who lives every day with the reality of incarceration affecting my family and many others across our state.

Bills like SB 137 may appear on paper to strengthen accountability by increasing sentences. However, for families like mine, they represent something far deeper — the continued expansion of punishment without addressing the underlying issues that lead people into the justice system in the first place.

Longer sentences do not heal communities. They do not repair harm. And they do not create the conditions necessary for real change.

What families across West Virginia desperately want to see are meaningful investments in rehabilitation, education, mental health care, and personal development programs within our correctional facilities. When individuals are given access to programs that help them understand their actions, develop emotional regulation, learn job skills, and address trauma or addiction, we see real transformation happen.

I have personally witnessed how access to programs and personal growth opportunities can change the trajectory of a person's life. Growth is possible. Accountability is possible. Redemption is possible. But those things require resources, support, and the opportunity for rehabilitation.

Policies that simply extend incarceration without expanding rehabilitative opportunities ultimately cost taxpayers more money while doing little to improve long-term public safety.

Families like mine are not asking for the absence of accountability. We believe deeply in accountability and responsibility. What we are asking for is a justice system that also believes in growth, healing, and the possibility of change.

If our goal as a state is safer communities, then we must focus on policies that reduce recidivism and prepare individuals to return to society as healthier, more stable, and productive members of their communities.

I respectfully urge the committee to reconsider policies that increase incarceration without addressing rehabilitation and instead focus on solutions that strengthen families, support transformation, and build safer communities for all West Virginians.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Crysta Black

West Virginia Advocate for Justice Reform

I am a massive supporter of honey bees having raised many with my family and neighbors and have seen the positive impact they have on the environment and farms in my community. The bees provide pollen to the farmers in my community helping their crops, which helps to feed livestock. The bees also provide honey which brings lots of income in a state which needs as much as possible. I have also throughout the years of raising them they have never stung me or anyone I know and I walk near their boxes with no suit and they pay no mind. Thus I am asking anyone republican or democrat to support the bees as they are a massive benefit to the community and environment of this great state of West Virginia.  I know major cities in West Virginia and other places safely have urban beehives. We just need common sense and freedom loving legislation

I strongly support this bill. It would be a meaningful step forward for the cosmetology profession and the people it serves.