Wednesday, February 28^th, was “crossover day” in the Legislature, meaning that all bills had to be passed out of their house of origin or they would not be considered this Session. This year’s Regular Session will end next Saturday evening at midnight with the budget session to continue through the next week.

In the Senate:

As of 4:00 p.m., Wednesday, February 29, 2012, the 50th day of the 80th Legislature’s 2nd Regular Session, 174 bills had passed the Senate and will move on to the House for further consideration.

In the House:

As of 4:00 p.m., Wednesday, February 29, 2012, the 50th day of the 80th Legislature’s 2nd Regular Session, 1,348 bills had been introduced in the House. Of those, 120 have passed the House and have moved on to the Senate for further consideration.

Coach Huggins called and asked if the Friends of Coal would help make him and West Virginia the “BEST”!  By going to this site --- www.espn.com/infiniti/ ---and voting, once a day for the next 7 days, we can help Coach Bob “Huggie Bear” Huggins win $100,000.00 for his favorite charity which is the Norma Mae Huggins Fund, a cancer research endowment at WVU, dedicated to Coach Huggins’ mother.

He’s in the “final four” and as of last night, Coach Huggins had passed the Ohio State coach by 2% and was behind the BYU coach by 1%. Please help put our Mountaineer Coach over the top and show the nation we can support our own better than any other State. It will bring great positive attention to all of us here in West Virginia.

All you have to do is log in to --- www.espn.com/infiniti/ ----- After you vote, you will be asked to register with a name and selected password. Thanks for helping.

The Friends of Coal Soccer Complex at Trace Fork will be officially dedicated on March 25. It has been announced that the facility will be home to all of the University of Charleston’s Women’s Soccer home games and practices. In addition, the field has already been used by an estimated 800 kids between mid-January to the end of February.  Organizers say the facility is quickly getting booked up! For example the month of August already has nearly 2,300 kids registered to use the complex.

According to the EIA’s latest weekly report, coal production nationwide continues to steepen its decline, down 0.8 percent while West Virginia’s weekly production has dropped 1.0 percent for the year ending 2/26/12. Compare that to just last week when nationwide production was down 0.5 percent while West Virginia’s coal production was down 0.8 percent year over year and two weeks ago when demand was off just 0.3 percent nationally and 0.5 percent for West Virginia year over year.

Two factors are causing the decline, a drop in demand as the nation’s utilities work through stockpiles of coal left from a mild winter and for met coal due to the economic uncertainties around the world, as well as regulatory uncertainty caused by the EPA’s on-going assault on coal.

The West Virginia Coal Association and Friends of Coal web presence continues to expand. According to the latest reports, the Association website (www.wvcoal.com) saw 6,401 visits for the month of February, with 15,485 page views. Visitors to the site included people from 112 countries and approximately 74 percent were new visitors.

Meanwhile, the Friends of Coal website (www.friendsofcoal.org) saw 3,252 visits with 7,793 page views. This included visitors from 54 countries with approximately 79 percent being first-time visitors.