The Friends of Coal staffed booths at the Hatfield-McCoy Festival in Williamson Saturday, June 12 and also attended the Freedom Festival Picnic at Chief Logan State Park, sponsored by the West Virginia Coalfields Tea Party on the same day.  Both events were plagued by rain, but turnout was excellent nonetheless. The Friends of Coal joined the Citizens for Coal at both events.          

The Friends of Coal and Citizens for Coal also joined together to staff a booth at the Boone County Coal Festival this week.  Outreach at the Coal Festival included getting Friends of Coal signage posted in businesses throughout the town and providing yard signs, stickers and license plates to the folks who attended the event.  

WVCA President Bill Raney spoke to the Wells Fargo Federal Black Lung Seminar in Charleston on June 15 and several Association members met with First Congressional District candidates, Mike Oliverio and David McKinley in Morgantown on June 16.            

In addition, representatives of the Association met with Gov. Manchin this week regarding the Obama Administration’s continuing assault on eastern and Appalachian coal states.

The Association’s Safety Committee will be traveling to Washington, DC June 29, for a meeting with our Congressional delegation and committees of both the House and Senate.  The focus is on developing federal mine safety legislation following the Upper Big Branch accident.

Thursday’s announcement by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers of its decision to suspend the use of Nationwide Permit 21 (NWP 21) in the Appalachian region of six states is discriminatory and threatens the economy of the region.           

In a June 17 announcement, the Corps said they will immediately suspend the issuance of mining permits under the NWP 21 standards for the mining industry in West Virginia as well as Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Virginia.        

The Corps said in a release that the suspension “will remain in effect until the Corps takes further action on NWP 21 or until the program expires on March 18, 2012.”          

NWP 21 is used to authorize valley fills for mining operations.          

“This decision by the Corps is driven by the arrogance of the Obama Administration and the EPA,” said Chris Hamilton, co-chair of the Coalition for Mountaintop Mining. “It is part of a broader attack on the coal industry – particularly the coal industry in Appalachia.             

“Why should the coal miners of West Virginia, Virginia, Kentucky and Appalachia bear the burden of an unfair and unjust environmental policy – one that clearly discriminates against them and threatens the economy of our region? The Obama Administration and the EPA talk about ‘environmental justice’ but this is neither fair not just. It is discrimination pure and simple.”           

“Today’s decision will slow job creation, add further uncertainty to the permitting process and undermine our ability to utilize the nation’s most abundant domestic energy resource—coal,” Hal Quinn, president of the National Mining Association said. “America’s coal mining operations are dedicated to meeting the environmental expectations of the communities in which we operate.  The hardworking people of Appalachia have shown their support for NWP 21 and other policies that have provided greater economic certainty for their families and their communities.  We are disappointed they have been let down.”

The full U.S. Senate will vote later this year on a plan to give coal-fired power plants a two-year break from federal regulators intent on cracking down on gas emissions, Sen. Jay Rockefeller's office announced Thursday.         

Rockefeller, D-W.Va., said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., told Rockefeller a vote would happen.          

"The majority leader has indicated publicly that the Senate will have a vote on my EPA bill this year, which is good news," Rockefeller said in a statement Thursday.         

Bill Raney, president of the West Virginia Coal Association, said it's good that Reid intends to bring it to the floor, but wonders if the majority leader will manage to get Democrats behind it.         

"The other aspect to that is Harry Reid going to help pass Rockefeller's bill?" Raney said.

In the face of a presidential call to break the country's dependence on fossil fuels such as coal, Gov. Joe Manchin III defended the state's premier export.

President Obama, in his first Oval Office address Tuesday, called the BP oil spill "the most painful and powerful reminder" that "the time to embrace a clean energy future is now." Manchin, in an interview with the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review hours before Obama's address, said coal remains the most important energy source in the country and pushed back against efforts to move away from it.

He said the Obama administration risks "self-inflicted economic pain" in its quest to curtail carbon emissions and spur renewable energy development.

"The bottom line is, they continue to try to over-regulate and over-tax," said Manchin, a Democrat. "I'm not being critical. I'm being very factual with what I see."