The West Virginia Eleventh Annual CEDAR Golf Classic will be held on Tuesday, May 8, 2012 at the Twisted Gun Golf Course in Wharncliffe, West Virginia.  Registration will begin at 9 a.m. with golf beginning at 10 a.m. promptly.  Contact Bud Clapp at bud.clapp@nscorp.com for more information.

The WV Coal Mining Institute, the WVCA and the Central Appalachian Section of SME will be held at the Stonewall Jackson Resort May 3-5, 2012.

Registration information was sent out previously via e-mail with detailed information.  If you did not receive please let us know and it will be resent.

San Diego Union-Tribune

When it comes to evaluating President Barack Obama and the continuing surge in the cost of gasoline, a fair starting point is what administration officials have said on the topic. It is a matter of record that Energy Secretary Stephen Chu used to say that “we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe” – which are about double the U.S. level. While Chu disowned his comments before taking office, his policy prescriptions didn’t change.

By Hans A. von Spakovsky

A number of states have joined with industry organizations to challenge new rules from the Environmental Protection Agency on the grounds that they run contrary to the Clean Air Act. Oral arguments began on February 28 before D.C.’s Court of Appeals.

Previous cases have not gone so well. In 2007, in Massachusetts v. EPA, the Supreme Court affirmed the EPA’s authority to regulate carbon dioxide as a pollutant under the Clean Air Act. And last year, the Court unanimously threw out a lawsuit, American Electric Power Co. v. Connecticut, that was brought by eight states. In its decision, the court held that neither states nor private parties could bring a global-warming claim under the federal common-law theory of “public nuisance” because the EPA held authority over this issue. That decision leaves all such regulation solely in the hands of the EPA and threatens the right of plaintiffs even to appeal its decisions.

By Joel Kotkin, for the Daily Beast

The divide between the fossil-fuel industry and the green movement is increasingly dividing the country by region, class, and culture.

With gas prices beginning their summer spike to what could be record highs, President Obama in recent days has gone out of his way to sound reassuring on energy, seeming to approve an oil pipeline to Oklahoma this week after earlier approving leases for drilling in Alaska. Yet few in the energy industry trust the administration’s commitment to expanding the nation’s conventional energy supplies given his strong ties to the powerful green movement, which opposes the fossil-fuel industry in a split that’s increasingly dividing the country by region, class, and culture.

But Republicans, other than the increasingly irrelevant Newt Gingrich, have failed to capitalize on the potent issue, instead lending the president an unwitting assist by focusing the primary fight on vague economic plans and sex-related side issues like abortion, gay marriage, and contraception. The GOP may be winning over the College of Cardinals, but it is squandering its chance of gaining a majority in the Electoral College, holding the House, and taking the Senate.