By WV Senator Ryan Weld

February 6, 2023 - I’ve previously spoken about my experiences as an intelligence officer in the United States Air Force and why that experience led me to advocate for a ban of the Chinese-owned app TikTok on state-owned devices. Since issuing that call, legislation has been introduced and quickly passed by the State Senate. It now awaits action by the House of Delegates. While we’ve begun action on that issue, there is another concern that I believe we must proactively address, which is the purchase of real estate, mineral interests, and farmland by foreign countries that have shown themselves to be hostile to the United States.

To tackle this issue, I’ve partnered with State Auditor JB McCuskey and Commissioner of Agriculture Kent Leonhardt to introduce legislation to keep land in our state from being purchased by these bad actors.

Our legislation aims to prohibit citizens and entities from nations that have been designated as “countries of particular concern” by the U.S. Department of State from purchasing both properties that our subject to delinquent tax sales and farmland around the state. The list of the foreign countries given this designation include the People’s Republic of China, Iran, Russia, and Saudi Arabia.

West Virginia has recently started to make progress in the technology that turns materials found in many former coal mines into the elements needed to produce lithium-ion batteries – materials which China currently has near total control of worldwide. As China continues to assert trade dominance, acquiring these coal sites makes perfect sense and there is nothing that prevents them from doing so. Each year in West Virginia, hundreds, if not thousands, of mineral interests are sold at public auctions due to delinquent taxes. Again, there is nothing that would prevent these interests from being purchased by a Saudi Arabian-backed entity in an effort to tie up our state’s mineral resources. We cannot let entities backed by these countries utilize our State’s assets in their efforts to undermine the United States.

According to recent data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, 37.6 million acres (or about 2.9%) of agricultural land in the United States is foreign owned. This may not seem like much at first, but it’s equal to an area of land roughly the size of the state of Iowa. The USDA has also reported that since 2015, the amount of agricultural land acquired by foreign interests has risen to 3.3 million acres per year (the previous six years had an average of just 800,000 acres each year). Fourteen states have limits on the foreign ownership of agricultural land, with another eight considering legislation to do the same. Rising land prices, increased foreign investment in farmland, a trade war with China, and concerns about food security all necessitate action on this issue. I am ready to work with Commissioner Leonhardt to ensure our farmland is utilized right here in the Mountain State to feed our citizens.

While some may believe this isn’t an issue that merits spending time on during this Legislative Session, I ask you to look to the recent news coming out of Montana. I am sure the people of that state never imagined that a surveillance balloon launched by the Chinese government would one day be floating above them while spying on an Air Force is something that would ever happen. Yet on February 2, that is exactly what happened. That is why I firmly believe we must take a proactive approach to protecting the property, resources, and interests of this state.

(Senator Weld represents the 1st Senatorial District and serves as the Majority Whip as well as the Chair of the Military Committee and Vice Chair of the Judiciary Committee in the West Virginia Senate. He also is an attorney with the firm of Spilman, Thomas & Battle in their Wheeling office.)