Legislation creating the official State Friends of Coal license plate was approved by the Committee on Transportation & Infrastructure of the West Virginia Senate this morning.  The stand-alone bill, SB 206, was unanimously adopted by the committee and will now advance to the full Senate for its approval.
 
The specific language of SB 206 was also amended into SB 4, which creates additional license plates, and will effectively increase its chance of passage.
 
We will keep you informed as this bill progresses through the legislative process.
 
In the meantime, please take a moment to contact both your Senate and House representatives to urge their support of SB 206 and SB 4, as amended.

Beckley Register Herald - January 12, 2010

CHARLESTON — A southern West Virginia lawmaker feels the ultimate goal of the Environmental Protection Agency is to wipe out the entire coal industry by initially outlawing the mountaintop removal practice via uncompromising regulation.

“It’s an attack on the whole industry,” Delegate Steve Kominar, D-Mingo, said in Monday’s interims session.

His criticism of the federal agency came after lawmakers heard updates on improving brownfields in a meeting of the Joint Commission on Economic Development.

...

Washington, DC – Senator Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va., today released the following statement in response to actions by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in moving forward with Patriot Coal’s Hobet 45 mining permit in Lincoln County.  This was the first permit given EPA approval following an earlier announcement last year that 23 surface mining permits in West Virginia were to receive an “enhanced review” by the EPA.  The mining permit, once given final approval by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, will help over 450 workers remain on the job.  Byrd is also pleased by the decision of the EPA and Arch Coal to continue discussions in hopes of reaching an agreement on the Spruce Mine permit.

 

Byrd met with EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson on December 22, 2009 to continue their candid and cordial dialogue on issues of importance to coal mining in West Virginia.

 

It is unconscionable to me that West Virginians anywhere could be so unwilling to accept the fact that coal built this state, and will continue to build it’s future, that they would stoop to protesting the Friends of Coal Ladies Auxiliary’s Coal in the Classroom program. My bet is, as with most environmental socialists, that they are not West Virginians at all, but transplants from another state. And to have the unmitigated gall to complain about “indoctrination” of our children, when these environmental socialists have been “indoctrinating” our children to their misguided and evil plans for the future of our nation for the last three decades at least, they are showing just how small-minded and vile they really are.

Mr. Webb should shut his mouth while his brain is disengaged for a change, and learn to accept the fact this nation simply cannot afford to pay for the socialist agenda, be it in the environmental arena or the political arena. Kudos to the Raleigh County Board of Education for their fair and balanced mindset for allowing our children to begin to see the real picture, and I hope they have the fortitude, which I doubt, to stand up to these repugnant environmental socialists and continue to allow our children to see the real world, and learn where our power really comes from.

Larry Hanna Jr.
Renick

Our Readers Speak — Dec. 31, 2009
Beckley Register-Herald