WASHINGTON – Some 50 aggrieved West Virginians carpooled for four hours and 250 miles Wednesday to confront the Mountain State’s congressional delegation in the nation’s capital.

Tracy Cannon, the group’s organizer, said they had tried to meet with some members of the delegation back home, but they wouldn’t hold town meetings to listen to their concerns over Washington proposals to reduce Medicaid benefits and federal environmental regulations.

“If they’re not coming to us, we’re going to them,” said Cannon.

Cannon said the protesters are members of “Indivisible,” a national group started by former Democratic House staffers who have organized protests at Republican town hall meetings around the country.

They presented their litany of grievances to the West Virginia delegation at a reception hosted by the West Virginia State Society at the Dirksen Senate Office Building. They hoped to talk with Sens. Joe Manchin and Shelley Moore Capito and Congressman Alex Mooney.

Cannon said the group has picketed outside Mooney’s Martinsburg, West Virginia, office for weeks, urging him to hold a town hall meeting during the week-long congressional recess in February.

Cannon said many West Virginians are concerned about the fate of the 170,000 low-income residents who gained health care coverage under Obamacare’s Medicaid program.

A House Republican plan unveiled Monday would roll back the Medicaid expansion in 2020, with federal payments after that going only to those already covered. It would also overhaul the broader Medicaid program to end its open-ended federal funding and instead each state would receive limited financing based on enrollment and costs.

Capito was among four moderate Republican senators from states that expanded Medicaid who wrote Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., earlier this week expressing concerns about an earlier draft of the House plan that would not have grandfathered in those already on the program.

Cannon said the West Virginia group is also concerned about reports President Donald Trump plans to cut the Environmental Protection Agency’s budget by a fourth and its staffing by a fifth to help pay for his military buildup.

“It is the air we breathe and the water we drink,” said Cannon. “The cuts would be terrible. I feel it will result in destabilizing the climate.”

— Murakami is CNHI’s Washington reporter. Contact him at kmurakami@cnhi.com.