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BECKLEY, W.Va. -- A West Virginia-based convenience store chain pledged Tuesday to donate $50,000 to Remember the Miners, a nonprofit group that raises money and awareness for coal miners and their families.
Bob Huggins, West Virginia University men's basketball coach and honorary chairman of Remember the Miners, accepted the pledge Tuesday from Little General Stores in Beckley, according to a news release.
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Published December 19, 2011
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency wants to change how it analyzes problems and makes decisions, in a way that will give it vastly expanded power to regulate businesses, communities and ecosystems in the name of “sustainable development,” the centerpiece of a global United Nations conference slated for Rio de Janeiro next June.
The major focus of the EPA thinking is a weighty study the agency commissioned last year from the National Academies of Science. Published in August, the study, entitled “Sustainability and the U.S. EPA,” cost nearly $700,000 and involved a team of a dozen outside experts and about half as many National Academies staff.
Its aim: how to integrate sustainability “as one of the key drivers within the regulatory responsibilities of EPA.” The panel who wrote the study declares part of its job to be “providing guidance to EPA on how it might implement its existing statutory authority to contribute more fully to a more sustainable-development trajectory for the United States.”
Or, in other words, how to use existing laws to new ends.
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By The Associated Press
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON -- More than 32 mostly coal-fired power plants in a dozen states will be forced to shut down and an additional 36 might have to close because of new federal air pollution regulations, according to an Associated Press survey.
Together, those plants -- some of the oldest and dirtiest in the country -- produce enough electricity for more than 22 million households, the AP survey found. But their demise probably won't cause homes to go dark.
The fallout will be most acute for the towns where power plant smokestacks long have cast a shadow. Tax revenues and jobs will be lost, and investments in new power plants and pollution controls probably will raise electric bills.
The survey, based on interviews with 55 power plant operators and on the Environmental Protection
Agency's own prediction of power plant retirements, rebuts claims by critics of the regulations and some electric power producers.
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Gabriel Nelson, E&E Reporter
The largest lobbying group for the coal industry is spoiling for a fight with Chesapeake Energy Corp., which bills itself as the second-largest U.S. natural gas producer, over the company's funding of a push for tougher air pollution rules.
Oklahoma City-based Chesapeake has given money to the American Lung Association to help fund the "Fighting for Air" campaign, according to past statements by Chesapeake and the ALA's most recent annual report. The health group is now running a nationwide advertising campaign, built around an image of a baby in a bright-red stroller coughing in front of a polluting power plant, to call for tougher air quality regulations.
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Handcrafted elephant, donkey presented during Senate gift exchange
by Jared Hunt
Daily Mail Capitol Reporter
Charleston Daily Mail
CHARLESTON, W.Va.-- While traditionally seen as a bad thing, Sen. Joe Manchin was happy to both give and receive lumps of coal in a holiday gift exchange with his fellow U.S. senators Monday evening.
His gift of West Virginia coal to fellow Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., ended up being the most talked-about gift of the party.
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By Trish Turner
Santa Claus came to town early this year -- in "secret" fashion -- spreading good tidings of great joy in one unlikely place -- the U.S. Senate.
Most gift-givers would probably give lawmakers lumps of coal at this point -- and the black gem actually did surface in Monday night's mystery gift exchange so common to many workplaces.
But senators participating in the "Secret Santa" exchange kept it mostly safe this season, sticking to their inner circle in a bipartisan manner that seemed to vanquish the partisan Scrooginess -- however fleetingly -- that has haunted the corridors of the Capitol all year.
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By C.V. Moore
BECKLEY — Southern West Virginia lacks a reliable, educated workforce, say business and industry leaders gathered Wednesday in Beckley.
“Everybody needs good employees right now. I don’t know of a business who doesn’t,” said local businessman Warren Hylton.
Hylton was among two dozen business people who gathered in Beckley for a regional meeting of the West Virginia Business and Industry Council (WVBIC), a lobbying organization for the business community.
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The Governor’s Energy Summit, sponsored by the WV Governor’s Office and the WV Department of Commerce is a one-day conference, entitled West Virginia: Energy Powering Economic Development, will be held on Tuesday, December 6, beginning at 8:30 a.m. at the Stonewall Resort. It will feature presentations on energy independence and security, carbon challenges, alternative fuels, and coal and natural gas resources.
For registration purposes, an online link has been established at: www.energywv.com/energysummit.
This online link is for conference attendance only. Should you require lodging, please contact the Stonewall Resort directly at (304) 269-7400. A block of rooms is being held for the evening of December 5 for the “Governor’s Energy Summit” at a rate of $99/night. All reservations should be made no later than Saturday, November 19.
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On November 17th, a coalition of groups opposed to coal, filed suit in the D.C. District Court requesting the EPA act on their petition to establish performance standards for methane, volatile organic compounds and particulate matter emissions from coal mines under the Clean Air Act. A copy of the complaint is available here. In June 2010, these plaintiffs petitioned EPA to list coal mines as a stationary source and establish performance standards for these pollutants. Petitioners claim EPA’s delay in responding is unreasonable. The suit cannot force EPA to grant the petition nor set the standards plaintiffs are seeking; rather, the suit is aimed at forcing the agency to take action on the petition. Given the importance of this issue, and to potentially lessen the likelihood that EPA will simply settle the litigation and agree to an unreasonable rulemaking schedule, the National Mining Association (NMA) intends to intervene in the litigation.
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