Announced as “breaking” news late last week, a group of 15 state attorneys general, including West Virginia’s Patrick Morrisey, took aim at the EPA’s Clean (Costly)Power Plan on Thursday, urging the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to issue an emergency stay of the controversial proposal’s deadlines while its legality is reviewed by the courts. 

The attorneys general argued that EPA lacks the legal authority to carry out the plan and said that a stay is appropriate so that States do not have to use taxpayer resources to comply with the rule before its formal publication.  

The September episode of the West Virginia Coal Association’s Coal Seam television show was filmed this week. The special guest was Senate President and Lt. Governor Bill Cole, who discussed the issues related to the President’s Carbon and Mercury Rules and their impact on the future of coal in the state – focusing specifically on what the state can do on its own to help the industry compete while continuing to push back on the Obama Administration’s regulatory assault. 

Cole also discussed the 2016 Legislative Agenda, saying that a big part of the upcoming session would be focused on tax reform and other means to help state businesses compete.  The episode begins airing next week.

The Coal Seam is available on your local public access cable channel, including Suddenlink Channel 17 in the southern part of the state. Check your local listings for the dates and times.

The 2015 edition of Coal Facts, the West Virginia Coal Association’s annual report on the status of the state’s coal industry, is now available. It is available at the WVCA’s office in Charleston or for download at http://www.wvcoal.com/docs/Coal%20Facts%202015.pdf.  Drop by and see us or visit our website for your copy today.

CHARLESTON – The Obama Administration today formally published the EPA’s final regulations governing carbon dioxide emissions from power plants. The regulation will endanger hundreds of power plants around the nation, raise the electric bills to the point of creating energy poverty for millions of Americans and endanger the electric grid.

“Today’s announcement by the Obama Administration of its adoption of the EPA’s ‘Costly Power Plan’ is yet another effort by this administration to hide its radical policies behind a façade of compromise,” said Bill Raney, president of the West Virginia Coal Association. “This latest iteration of the EPA’s regulatory assault against coal-fired power generation is being presented as addressing the concerns of industry, but nothing could be further from the truth.  Yes, the final regulation tacks on a couple of years to the compliance timeline, but all this accomplishes is perpetuate uncertainty and provide more time for the rule to do more damage – irreversible damage – to the nation’s energy industry and electric grid.

The coal industry has a long history of surviving dramatic cycles of good times and bad, but most people familiar with the coal industry recognize the current slump as being one of the most challenging in the history of the West Virginia coalfields.

This was the primary topic of a meeting of the West Virginia Coal Forum held Thursday in Bluefield. The West Virginia Coal Forum is a quasi-governmental agency that the state Legislature established in 1986. It represents the interests of both labor and management relating to the state’s leading industry.