Berkeley Springs Democrat Bibi Hahn will run against Daryl Cowles (R-Morgan) in November for the West Virginia House of Delegates seat in District 58.
Bibi Hahn Files to Run Against Daryl Cowles
The district covers parts of Morgan and Hampshire counties.
Cowles is part of the House Republican leadership team that has pushed an aggressive corporate agenda in Charleston.
Cowles is also executive director of the Morgan County Economic Development Authority.
Hahn is a political activist who most recently has been involved in a growing citizens’ campaign to defeat the TransCanada/Mountaineer Gas Potomac Pipeline project.
TransCanada is proposing to build a pipeline that will transport fracked gas from Pennsylvania, under the Potomac River and into Morgan County, West Virginia where the pipeline will be linked to a proposed Mountaineer Gas pipeline.
Daryl Cowles (R-Morgan)
Maryland Governor Larry Hogan, facing an election challenge from candidates opposed to the pipeline, will decide the fate of the pipeline within the next couple of weeks.
The No Potomac Pipeline campaign has generated a right/left citizen backlash against the local Republican establishment in West Virginia.
(Mountaineer Gas is involved in a prolonged and high profile legal battle with Morgan County farmer Patricia Kesecker. The company is using corporate eminent domain power to seize parts of the Kesecker farm for the pipeline. The Keseckers have hired an attorney and are fighting back — they are planning to take the company to a jury trial later this year.)
Cowles and State Senator Charles Trump (R-Morgan) traveled to Hancock, Maryland last month to attend a hearing held by the Maryland Department of the Environment.
More than 300 people attended that hearing and the vast majority spoke out against the pipeline.
Both Cowles and Trump spoke in favor of it.