- Details
The day after the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released far-reaching new standards for power plants that could have a crippling effect on West Virginia’s economy, U.S. Representative Nick J. Rahall (D-WV), top Democrat on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, grilled EPA officials at a House hearing before the Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment.
“Some time ago, it had long been my belief that the EPA could be a positive force in the permitting process for surface coal mining in West Virginia. After years of battles in courtrooms that left coal miners and coal communities in a long, tenuous limbo, this EPA had an opportunity to help achieve a center point that would provide for both energy development and environmental preservation. But it has utterly failed,” said Rahall. “Instead, this EPA took an extra-legal approach, choosing to step over the bounds of the law to promote an ideological agenda and, in so doing, to push opposing parties even further from the balance we have all sought for so long.”
- Details
The importance of the coal industry to the people of West Virginia was on display this week in a very clear way and in a forum most people would have found surprising. An online poll in the Charleston Gazette newspaper’s e-edition, saw 2/3rds of respondents agreeing with the U.S. District Court’s decision to overturn the EPA’s veto of the Spruce Mine. The poll question has been active and on the web page for most of the week.
As of 2 p.m. on Friday, March 30, the results were:
Question:
Do you agree with the federal judge's decision to overturn EPA's veto of the Spruce Mine Permit?
- Yes 1788 votes / 62%
- No 1112 votes / 38%
- Details
In the wake of the decision by U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson, the West Virginia Coal Association has been hitting the airwaves and taking to print to put the decision into perspective.
WVCA President Bill Raney released an op-ed this week that discusses the decision and refocuses the effort to pass HR 2018 in the U.S. Senate, which would end the EPA’s war on coal once and for all. Raney will also be a guest on WOWK-TV’s “DecisionMakers” this weekend where he will be discussing the same issue.
WVCA Vice President Jason Bostic will be on WV Radio’s WCHS 580 weekly radio show, “Business Matters” on Saturday morning discussing this decision and other EPA actions.
Excerpts from the op-ed and a news release issued on the decision have been picked up in various newspapers around the state and the region. And a new radio spot will begin airing next week on WV Radio Network channels discussing the decision and the need to pass HR 2018 in the Senate.
“This decision, while it is clearly important in and of itself, must be seen as reinforcing the need to pass HR 2018, the Clean Water Cooperative Federalism Act of 2011, and expanding on it to end this radicalized EPA’s assault on the mining industry – on ALL industry – to an end,” said Raney. “America needs jobs. We need to be creating new jobs and not destroying the ones we have in some myopic pursuit of a political agenda.”
- Details
Twice recently, the Supreme Court has curbed the EPA
By: Hoppy Kercheval
The Environmental Protection Agency, under President Obama's appointee, Lisa Jackson, has stretched its power to carry out an ideological mission.
Here's hoping a couple of surprising court decisions will temper the agency's zeal.
- Details
He really meant it when he said prices would "skyrocket"
By: Pete Du Pont
Our America today is very different from the America of some years ago. Government spending is greatly increased, as is the regulation of our economy. The growing size and reach of our government is sapping our nation's strength and independence. And our current president's policies have been quite different from our leaders of some years ago.
One of the best examples of these public policy changes is the huge increase in government regulation in how we generate and use energy, with its negative impact on supply, its focus on financing new and inefficient energy industries, and the resulting higher costs.
The policy of the Obama administration has been not to increase the energy supplies that are so critical to our nation's economic health, but to limit them, to increase energy prices, and to make energy more expensive.
Eliminating tax deductions for the oil and gas industries is at the top of the President's list, which would increase the price of gasoline and home heating oil for everyone. But this fits in with the Obama administration's overall inclination to hamper domestic production, whether through slowness in granting new permits or refusal to open new areas for exploration. In fact oil, production on federal lands was flat between 2009 to 2011, while production on nonfederal lands increased almost 7%.
And it is not just petroleum. Mr. Obama's Environmental Protection Agency wants to increase regulation of coal-fueled electricity plants, which produce almost half of our electricity, so as to drive up the price of electricity and force plants to close. None of this should be surprising, for as we know, Obama's energy secretary, Steven Chu, told The Wall Street Journal in 2008 that we must "figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe."
The president admitted that his cap-and-trade energy proposals, had they come to pass, would cause energy prices to "skyrocket" and bankrupt coal companies. In the Mr. Obama's words, coal fired plants can be built, but if they are, "it will bankrupt them because they're going to be charged a huge sum" for emitting the greenhouse gases.
On the other hand, the current administration is throwing money at "green" energy companies, exemplified by the failed $535 million federal loan guarantee in Solyndra. Alternative energy sources do need to be developed, but it is clear that the federal government is not a wise allocator of taxpayer dollars in this effort. These sources will never be developed to the point of affordability unless the free market is allowed to sort good technologies from bad without the skewing of investment that comes from government trying to pick winners and losers. America badly needs very different national energy policies that will increase our energy supplies, reduce the cost of energy, and get America positively moving again
http://online.wsj.com/article/
Join Friends of Coal
Be part of West Virginia's coal industry future. Together, we can continue building a stronger, more prosperous Mountain State by supporting our miners and communities.
West Virginia Coal Association
The West Virginia Coal Association has been the voice of the coal industry for over 100 years, advocating for safe, responsible mining practices and supporting the communities that depend on coal.
Join the FOC
Become a Friend of Coal and download our app to stay connected and support the industry.
Recent Press
