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CHARLESTON – The West Virginia Coal Association issues the following statement regarding today’s release by the federal Office of Surface Mining of the revised Stream Buffer Zone Rule.
“The unrelenting assault on coal by the Obama Administration continued today, with the issuance by the federal Office of Surface Mining (OSM) of new revisions to the existing Stream Buffer Zone (SBZ) rule,” said Jason Bostic, vice president of the West Virginia Coal Association. “The OSM claims this new rule provides ‘regulatory certainty.’ How can a 1200-page rule that blurs different statutes offer clarity or certainty?”
“And most egregious of all is the charade of a robust public comment process put forward by OSM in the crafting of this rule,” Bostic said. “The OSM performed a regulatory sleight of hand by requesting input from the states, then essentially slamming the door to that input while they moved to rewrite the law itself. In fact, nine out of ten states that were requested to provide input formally pulled out of the process as it moved forward without them.
“At its core, this appears to be an insidious attempt by OSM to blur the Surface Mining Act with the Clean Water Act to accomplish what EPA has previously failed to do – trample the responsibility of the states to develop their water quality standards.”
“It is also clear that the OSM’s estimate that ‘only’ 200 mining jobs would be lost due to the implementation of this plan has about as much validity a carnival sideshow palm reading. Several recent studies have shown the huge discrepancies between Obama Administration estimates of economic impact and the reality once these policies are implemented. “
“OSM arrogantly made the statement that the rule is ‘intended to protect the people of the coalfields.’ To that, we call on our congressional and state elected leaders to protect our coal miners from a runaway federal agency that is trying to replace a statute with a regulation developed in secret and wrapped in bureaucratic intrigue.”
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|
Commodity Region/Fuel |
Avg. BTU |
SO2 |
Price |
Price/mmBTU |
|
Central Appalachia |
12,500 |
1.2 |
$54.80 |
$2.19 |
|
Northern Appalachia |
13,000 |
3 |
$58.05 |
$2.23 |
|
Illinois Basin |
11,800 |
5 |
$40.55 |
$1.73 |
|
Powder River Basin |
8,800 |
0.8 |
$12.10 |
$0.69 |
|
Uinta Basin |
11,700 |
0.8 |
$39.35 |
$1.68 |
|
Natural Gas (Henry Hub) |
n/z |
0.01 |
n/a |
$2.79 |
Coal production in the U.S. fell sharply for the week ending July 4. And the decline from last year steepened, with production off 16.6% from last year’s levels according to the latest report from the Energy Information Agency (EIA) for the week.
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The upcoming August 17 TVMI golf tournament is the main fund raiser for its scholarship fund and is in need of your support for next year’s scholarships. At its May meeting, six 2015 scholarship recipients were named. The top two $6,000 scholarships were awarded to Erika Coleman and Caroline Hatfield, both from Belfry High School. Four $750 scholarships were awarded to Benjamin Fitch & Aaron Tackett from Sheldon Clark High School, Adriana Fleming from Logan High School and Olivia Ooten from Tug Valley High School. For more information or registration for the golf tournament contact Andy Ashurst (
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On Tuesday, July 7th, Attorney General Patrick Morrisey joined several state organizations to host a town hall meeting in Putnam County to discuss the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Environmental Protection Agency’s new rule regulating local waterways and his Office’s legal challenge to it. In addition to Attorney General Morrisey, several local business leaders and representatives from the West Virginia Coal Association and West Virginia Business & Industry Council (Jason Bostic), Associated Builders and Contractors of West Virginia, Contractors Association of West Virginia (Mike Clowser), West Virginia Chamber of Commerce, West Virginia Farm Bureau (Charles Wilfong) and West Virginia Oil and Natural Gas Association (Corky DeMarco) discussed the potential effects this rule could have on local landowners.
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The West Virginia Coal Forum – an organization representing both labor and management in the coal industry – in conjunction with the Greater Bluefield Chamber of Commerce, will host a forum to highlight the challenges and opportunities facing the coal industry from 9 a.m. to noon on July 23rd at the Quality Hotel & Conference Center in Bluefield. Entitled “West Virginia Coal – 2015 & Beyond”, this series of educational and informational events will bring attention to the impact of U.S. EPA’s Clean Power Plan, state and federal environmental regulations and strategies for confronting these critical issues head on.
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