Three grant programs have approved or recommended about $10.07 million for Lee County projects since January 2022, by The Lee Daily Register’s count from each agency’s own award lists. Of that, $7.09 million is Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) money that Virginia’s governor recommended. The rest was approved by the Virginia Coalfield Economic Development Authority (VCEDA) and the Virginia Tobacco Region Revitalization Commission. Figures run through Oct. 29, 2026.
The tally, year by year
| Year | VCEDA | Tobacco Commission | ARC (recommended) | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | $20,000 | $0 | $542,003 | $562,003 |
| 2023 | $10,000 | $0 | $1,400,000 | $1,410,000 |
| 2024 | $540,000 | $0 | $1,700,000 | $2,240,000 |
| 2025 | $21,750 | $1,565,000 | $2,200,000 | $3,786,750 |
| 2026 | $30,000 | $800,000 | $1,244,224 | $2,074,224 |
| Total | $621,750 | $2,365,000 | $7,086,227 | $10,072,977 |
The numbers come from VCEDA’s annual reports for 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025, plus its June 2026 board release. They also draw on the Tobacco Commission’s awards database and the state housing department’s yearly ARC lists. The 2025 peak came when ARC recommended $2.2 million for two projects and the Tobacco Commission approved $1.565 million on Jan. 7.
Most of it is pipe
All nine ARC projects for Lee County and its towns in those lists are water, sewer or utility work. They run from a $542,003 water interconnection in the 2022 round to a $556,284 Western Lee County water project on the August 2026 list, which gives no description of it. Added together, the Lee County and Pennington Gap rows are about 19 percent of the $37.3 million on all five lists.
The biggest thread is the Western Lee sewer system. ARC recommended $700,000 for it in 2023, $1 million in 2024 and $1.5 million in 2025, which adds to $3.2 million. That matches the ARC share the state cited on Sept. 24, 2025 for a $29.5 million wastewater project, which also includes $26.25 million from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The Tobacco Commission added a $1 million grant in January 2025, and its database showed $200,000 of it paid as of Oct. 29.
Pennington Gap’s town government is behind two other awards. The commission’s award summary described its $515,000 grant as half the cost of building and equipping a shared commercial kitchen in the town hall building, and the database showed nothing paid yet. The town’s $687,940 ARC recommendation pays for utilities on the access road to a chain hotel that Cardinal News called the county’s first. Town Manager Keith Harless said “who would ever think a road would cost $4 million?”
VCEDA writes small checks
Twelve of VCEDA’s 14 Lee County approvals since 2022 were $10,000 matching grants for new businesses. The three approved in June 2026 went to a Pennington Gap bakery, a Pennington Gap entertainment venue and a barbecue business in Jonesville. The other two were a $1,750 grant for a Battle of Jonesville marker in 2025 and a $500,000 loan in 2024. VCEDA’s 2025 report ties that loan to equipment for White Rock Truss & Components, whose $1.5 million expansion is meant to create 27 jobs.
Through 2025, Lee County’s $591,750 was about 1.1 percent of the authority’s $54.9 million in approvals. VCEDA keeps county accounts it calls coal and gas funds, and its 2025 report shows Lee’s took in $397 that year, against $1.9 million for Buchanan County. Lee’s account fell from $167,228 at the end of 2023 to $42,977 a year later, after $150,000 went into the 2024 loan.
What the count leaves out
ARC amounts are recommendations. We found final approval only for the $700,000 St. Charles waterline in February 2024 and a state release counting $3.2 million of ARC money in the sewer project. We did not check the other rounds. The state’s printed subtotals also do not always match its project rows, so we added the rows ourselves.
The Tobacco Commission database does not list an $800,000 grant for water and sewer work serving 115 new housing units at Lincoln Memorial University’s veterinary campus. We took it from the commission’s January 2026 awards summary. We left out 26 other awards since 2022 (not counting student aid) that name Lee among several counties, including four to the Lee County Livestock Association worth $710,500. We could not retrieve ARC’s own list of federal POWER awards, so they are not counted.
Money still in play
The two 2026 ARC projects were recommendations as of the state’s Aug. 27 release, and final approval rests with the federal commission. The Tobacco Commission’s Southwest Virginia program takes applications until Feb. 25, 2027, and its new AgVision pilot offers $10,000 grants to producers in 12 counties, Lee included, with up to $300,000 available. In fiscal 2027, VCEDA is capping seed grants at 12 per round and requiring a business education component.
