Congressman David McKinley recently paid a visit to the Wetzel County area to talk with local business owners, officials and law enforcement about the major issues in the area.

McKinley explained that congress is in session for two weeks and in the district for a week. While in the district, members of congress try to meet with as many people as possible. This allows the members to bring local issues to a state level. McKinley stated that this is helpful to them and this is his way of being the voice of those in his district. McKinley averages 250 meetings in a year.

Many local issues McKinley heard during his time in Wetzel County was the drug problem, flood insurance and road damages, along with issues with imports. Another item McKinley discussed during his visits was the Syrian Refugees.

An ongoing issue that McKinley encountered was flood insurance, in which he stated that they were not done yet. This issue goes back when the Federal Emergency Management Agency or FEMA, who underwrites all flood insurance and at the time was losing more than $40 billion. As a way to remedy this, premiums skyrocketed.

"I explained to them that we are not finished with that work, we were able to stop the first wave of flood insurance issues but now we have to get back and perfect it," McKinley said.

Syrian Refugees have been a major issue and congress has placed a hold on a decision. McKinley is referring to this as a pause.

"Can we just pause for a minute? We are not going to say no because there are people that need our help but lets just pause until we can plan better," McKinley said.

In order to protect national security, McKinley feels that they should pause until the 10,000 refugees can be cleared.

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