State Rep. Ben Robbins spoke with Jeff Poor Show earlier this week to discuss economic growth across his district. Robbins said he commonly hears two things his constituents want most: Growth and opportunity.

“That’s the reason I ran,” said Robbins (R-Sylacauga). “That’s what I focus a lot of my attention on is how do we create more opportunity in my district in the state of Alabama.”

He said that the foundation for increased economic success is already being put in place.

“I think some of the workforce package that we have does that. I think last session some of the game plan bills we passed does that. Just focusing on how do we incentivize growth in our state, and how do we incentivize that growth not just from foreign investment? When I say foreign, I mean, from out of the community in. And how do we grow from what we already have?”

Robbins also said those in his district have requested more activities for their children. Something he says can be made possible through economic progress.

“A lot of times what I hear is I wish we had more things for our children to do, more activities whatever that might look like. A lot of that comes from economic growth,” Robbins stated. “The more jobs you have, the more disposable income you have, the more services, and what have you then grow off spin off of that. What we want in our community is to be on the trajectory upward and not the downward trajectory.”

“Again, that’s one of the reasons I ran, I wanted to change that and the best way to do that is to focus on a growth strategy that benefits the entire state and indirectly benefits my district.”

Robbin’s district is home to one of the largest sources of graphite in the world. He believes the resource could play a crucial role in bringing about the much sought after progress through a new mining operation.

“You know, there is Westwater, which is a graphite mining company that has built a processing plant in Kellyton in Coosa County,” said Robbins.

He said that when many people think of graphite they think of the potential to build Electric Vehicles, but there is another idea in the works that could be far more transformative.

“One of the things people think about is the EV market and whether or not it can be used to create batteries for the EV market. One of the other things that’s so important about it is the national security aspect. So if we can get that mine online in Coosa County, every private in the US Army walks around with a backpack and that backpack is battery powered.”

According to Robbin’s, most graphite now comes from either Eastern Europe or from Africa and is typically being mined by Chinese-owned companies

“What we would like to be able to do, obviously is mine ourselves, process it ourselves, and be able to supply our nation’s military, off our own raw materials as opposed to relying on other countries.”

Robbins also spoke of the significance of the mine for three counties in particular.

“So, that’s why I think it’s so important for our national security but also the economic opportunities. I mean, we’re talking about not just the processing facility that’s being built, that’s about 90% complete in Kellyton, but then if we can get the mine online we’re talking about completely changing the economy and kind of the Coosa, Tallapoosa, Talladega County area.”

However, there has been one major hurdle in the process.

“One of the big things we’re looking at now is Coosa county is so remote and parts of Coosa County are so remote it doesn’t have the power grid to support a mine,” stated Robbins. “It doesn’t have the roads, the infrastructure is just not there. So what we have to do first is get the processing plant up and off the ground, which were 90% there if we can get that online.”

“We need to improve our infrastructure in our rural parts to get the mine going.”

Overall, Robbins believes that the state as a whole needs to take an interest in the economic well being of the area to achieve true success.

“I think we’re going to have to at some point make an investment in kind of Northwest Coosa County in terms of building the grid and in terms of building water lines out there, and that’s going to take an investment from the state because because Coosa County just can’t afford it,” he said. “But I think that we will get a return on our investment because you’re looking at the tax dollars that would come off of an operational mine.”

Austen Shipley is a staff writer for Yellowhammer News.