Coal Miners Rally in Pittsburgh

Two days of public hearings began today in Pittsburgh on proposed rules by the EPA that would set more stringent standards for the emissions of CO2 from coal-burning power plants. These rules are being proposed to stave off global warming. Similar hearings were held earlier this week in Atlanta, Denver, and Washington, D.C., but these hearings in Pittsburgh, right in the middle of the coal-rich Appalachians, attracted a great deal of attention from the coal industry and its political supporters.

            Yesterday the coal industry held a rally. Called an affordable electricity and energy jobs rally, the gathering included Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett, West Virginia Governor Earl Ray Tomblin, and labor leaders. The rally was attended by hundreds of West Virginia coal miners.

            Tomblin, an unabashed supporter of the coal industry, spoke at the rally in support of the coal companies and against the proposed new power plant rules. Now, before going much further, let me give credit to Tomblin, who, as he spoke at this rally, did not deny the connection between burning coal and warming up the world. He did, however, have a pretty harsh critique of the Environmental Protection Agency. He described the proposed carbon rules as “unreasonable restrictions” and “ideological policies” that would eliminate jobs in the coal region. He also used a race-to-the-bottom argument that reducing the emissions of U.S. power plants would raise electricity rates and send manufacturers overseas to countries that don’t govern their power production so well or don’t govern it at all.

            I don’t claim that Tomblin or other politicians’ concern for jobs is insincere. It is nonetheless interesting to me how well their concern for the employment of their constituents dovetails with the concerns of industry.  Back when the auto industry and the steel industry decided to move operations overseas and allow America’s industrial belt to crumble and turn into the rust belt I don’t recall a great number of politicians pontificating on the concern to keep Detroiters or Pittsburghers in their jobs.

 

When did politicians hold rallies to keep jobs in Detroit and Pittsburgh?

As I said above, I give credit to Tomblin for not denying climate change. And I guess in a weird way I have to give credit to Nick Casey, the former chairman of West Virginia’s Democratic Party who is now running for Congress. He doesn’t deny climate change either. But in a meeting with some of West Virginia’s largest lobbying groups he said that global warming is not a problem to be addressed by West Virginians. “It’s not our problem,” he said, because global warming is an international issue.

            Excuse me, I hope the quality of my writing doesn’t suffer as I keep pounding at the keyboard, but right now my head is spinning. Nick Casey is saying global warming is not a West Virginia problem because the problem belongs to the whole world. Well, well, well. I’m not even sure where to start with this. It is true that as the seas rise and the oceans grow more and more acidic West Virginia will not be immediately affected. The amount of warming that the Mountain State experiences may not be as great as what is expected in other places. So Casey could be right that global warming may not be a big problem for West Virginia. But, as a state with a lot of coal and natural gas, it is, undeniably, their responsibility.

            And my head still spins.

            

A Great Day For the People of Appalachia

This is a great day for the mountains. Actually, the great day was yesterday, but I’m just getting around to blogging today, but it’s still a great day. Anyway, yesterday a panel from the US Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled that the EPA is within its authority to set up a process, in coordination with the Army Corps of Engineers, to review Clean Water Act permits for mining operations.

            Ever since the enactment of the Clean Water Act, which requires permitting for dumping or dredging in the waterways of this country, it has fallen to the Army Corps of Engineers to issue those permits. Having the Corps perform this function made sense, as this agency has been building dams, canals, and flood control structures.

            Since taking office in 2009 and in an effort to mitigate the pollution and destruction that is the legacy of mountaintop mining, the Obama administration has been involving the EPA in the review process for mountaintop mining permits. The court’s ruling, which came from a three-judge panel, invalidated lower court decisions by U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton that sided with the mining companies who claimed that the EPA was overstepping its authority in working with the Corp on permitting for the mines. Yesterday’s decision sends the case back to U.S. District Court.

Thank you, Mr. President for improving the lives of Appalachians

As more and more science indicates that mountaintop removal is bad for people’s health (see here, here, and here) and is bad for the environment (see here, here, here, here, here, and here), it only makes sense that the EPA should take part in permitting for the mines. And if you’ve ever seen the destruction caused by these mines, you wonder why the EPA hasn’t been part of the process all along.

ALEC's Efforts to Harpoon EPA Limits on CO2

I’m never surprised when I read news like this. Using documents obtained from the American Legislative Council (ALEC), the Guardian has found a coordinated effort by the GOP and big business to harpoon the EPA’s ability to regulate greenhouse gasses.

            ALEC, which is funded in large part by the coal company Peabody Energy and the Koch brothers, and which holds a strong stance against the EPA, has been encouraging state attorneys general to bring lawsuits against new EPA regulations that restrict emissions from power plants. ALEC encouraged legislators to perform similar lobbying of governors and state attorneys general. The organization also got legislation into about a dozen state houses that would impinge on the efforts of the EPA to reduce carbon emissions.

            The new rules for power plant emissions came out last year. In a somewhat surprising move this week, the Supreme Court ruled that the EPA has the authority to enforce a similar rule that protects downwind states from the pollution caused by power plants in other states.

            Considering all the big money and the organized effort against the EPA and any program to reduce the amount of carbon that we pump into the atmosphere, it amazes me that any progress can occur. But it does. There may be hope.

Good News About Coal And Coal Mining? Can You Believe It?

Wow. That’s all I can think right now. Wow. I just got this news story in from Reuters. In a consent decree reached with the Department of Justice and the Environmental Protection Agency Alpha Natural Resources and its subsidiaries have agreed to spend about $200 million to install and operate wastewater treatment systems and begin upgrades to current systems to reduce toxic runoff from their mines that pollute streams throughout Appalachia.

            Alpha will also pay $27.5 million in civil penalties for thousands of permit violations. This is the largest penalty in history for violations of Section 402 of the Clean Water Act.

            In other good news, Spaniards are showing some good sense in banning mountaintop removal from the beautiful mountains of their northern region.

            Is today Christmas? It sort of feels that way to me right now.

UPDATE: For more on the Alpha story check out Ken Ward's blog here. 

Snoopy and Charlie Brown are happy for the mountains and the folks who live there.

West Virginia Governor Tomblin Meets With EPA Administrator McCarthy, Maddening Irony Ensues

Gov. Tomblin criticizes ‘unreasonable’ EPA rules

The above link takes you to Ken Ward’s Coal Tattoo blog in which he reports on the meeting between West Virginia governor Earl Ray Tomblin and EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy. In the same meeting in which the two discussed the poison water crisis in southern West Virginia, Tomblin complained about the Environmental Protection Agency’s “unreasonable” rules.

            Tomblin’s comments about unreasonableness concerned the agency’s greenhouse gas regulations and not regulations on chemical containers and toxic spills in rivers, but even still the irony meter must have gone off the charts while the governor spoke to the Washington official.

From Coal Tattoo: West Virginia's Leaders Embrace Coal's Past As the EPA Tries to Limit Greenhouse Gasses

EPA carbon rules: West Virginia leaders continue to grasp for the past, rather than embracing the future

The above link takes you to Ken Ward’s Coal Tattoo and describes the absolute backwards stance taken by both Democrats and GOP politicians in West Virginia. Only retiring Senator Rockefeller made any sense in this ever warming world.

Danger: It's More Than Obamacare on the Chopping Block For the GOP

The political blackmail that the GOP is using, that of threatening a government shutdown in order to render the new healthcare legislation toothless by defunding it, has been the headline grabbing news over the last couple of weeks and has only intensified over the last few days. But there is more to the shenanigans that the Grand Old Party is up to.

            The Republicans are now using the mechanism of raising the debt ceiling as a way to give away a wish list to big oil, King Coal, and other industries. According to the New York Times, GOP leaders sent to their rank and file a laundry list of provisions they want attached to the bill to raise the debt ceiling. Besides delaying Obamacare and limits on malpractice, the wish list includes such anti-environmental provisions as giving a green light to the construction of the Keystone pipeline, more offshore oil and gas drilling, more permitting of oil and gas exploration on federal lands, rolling back regulation on coal ash, and blocking the EPA’s new regulations on greenhouse gas production.

            Wow.

            Politically, the GOP controls the House, but that is only due to some ingenious Gerrymandering that some of the states were recently able to pull off. The party of Lincoln has failed to gain the popular vote for the presidency in five of the last six elections, and the one win for the GOP was for a sitting president, George W. Bush, who barely won. This isn’t the only time that the Republican Party has become a loser. Things were so bad for them in the seventies after Nixon’s disgrace and resignation that they considered changing the name of the party.

All these latest giveaways to business and industry that the GOP is trying to work into the debt ceiling deal are, of course, all about campaign donations and money. But what they are proposing is so extreme that I sense a crazed sort of nihilism that wants to pull in and destroy what is good and great about this country while this political party experiences what may be a death spiral.

As Though Things Aren't Bad Enough: GOP Budget Cuts For the EPA and More Destruction For Appalachia

As though we don’t have it bad enough already, the GOP in the House of Representatives wants to slash the budget for the EPA and turn Appalachia into even more of a wasteland.

            Under the House Interior and Environment spending bill to come before the House Appropriations subcommittee today, the budget for the Environmental Protection Agency would be slashed by 34 percent from its 2012 level. With this kind of budget slashing, it’s hard to imagine how the agency could adequately keep our air and water clean. The EPA budget for 2012 was $8,449,385,000, a dollar amount that is only three quarters of what it was 20 years ago had the budget kept up with inflation. The 34 percent cut would essentially half the agency’s budget from what it was a generation ago.

            As though the third-world regulation of mining practices in Appalachia aren’t lax enough, the bill has in its crosshairs language in the Clean Water Act that is related to the stream buffer rule and the definition of “fill material” that is allowed in our nation’s waterways. The buffer rule, which restricts the dumping of mining waste to at least 100 feet from streams, and regulation on fill material can be applied to mitigate, at least somewhat, the destruction of mountaintop removal coal mining. Seeing the extent of the destruction from mountaintop removal, I have a hard time seeing how it could be less regulated, but I guess the House GOP has the bigger and bigger mountaintop mines dancing in their heads.

The changes to the Clean Water Act would invalidate a recent victory for the EPA, in which the agency revoked a permit for an expansion of a mountaintop mine that would have destroyed miles of streams. The bill would also block the Interior Department from toughening up environmental regulations on the dumping of waste from mountaintop removal mining.

            There are a lot of other bad things in this bill. Arts funding is cut, and the sulfur content of gasoline would not be reduced, as per the EPA. As part of this package, even though we are not at war, the GOP plans to increase military spending.

Senator Mitch McConnell Wants to Fast Track Mountaintop Removal Permitting With the Coal Jobs Protection Act

Not to be outdone by Joe Manchin, his Democratic colleague from neighboring West Virginia, Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell announced plans to introduce a bill similar to Manchin's EPA Fair Play Act that would restrict the ability of the EPA to protect our land and water. In his press release, McConnell was joined by West Virginia GOP Representative Shelly Capito, who is introducing similarly worded legislation to the House of Representatives.

            McConnell’s “Coal Jobs Protection Act” would place time limits on the EPA’s approval process. Under the bill, the EPA would have 270 days, or slightly less than nine months, to grant Clean Water Act 402 water pollution permits. The agency would have a year’s time to conduct environmental assessments on proposed valley fills under the Clean Water Act’s 404 permitting process, something that the EPA estimates to take, on average, about three years. The proposed legislation goes on to say that, “Failure to act within that time frame for approval of a 404 permit would mean the application is approved, the permit is issued, and the permit can never be subject to judicial review.” In other words, McConnell wants hastily approved permits for mountaintop mines or they will automatically be approved by default. And after that, they cannot be questioned.

            The bill would also disable the EPA from regulating carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants.

            Unmentioned in the press release is the recent court victory that allowed the EPA to revoke the permit for the Spruce Mine No. 1 in West Virginia, but it does include figures on declining coal production in Kentucky, stating that in 2012 the state’s total coal production fell by over 16 percent and direct employment from coal mining fell by over 22 percent, with 4000 miners in eastern Kentucky loosing their jobs. Of course by including these figures in the press release McConnell implies that the EPA is somehow responsible for this lowered productivity and job loss, when it is in actuality the extremely low prices for natural gas that have industry abandoning coal.

Senator Joe Manchin Wants to Tie the Hands of the EPA by Reintroducing the EPA Fair Play Act

Earlier this week the U.S. District Court of Appeals handed West Virginia and the environment a victory when they ruled that the EPA could withdraw a previously approved Clean Water Act permit for the Spruce Mine No. 1, a permit for the largest such mine operation to be performed in West Virginia.

            In an unsurprising political move, West Virginia’s Democratic Senator Joe Manchin reintroduced the EPA Fair Play Act, Senate Bill 272. The summary of the bill reads thus:

EPA Fair Play Act - Amends the Federal Water Pollution Control Act (commonly known as the Clean Water Act) to remove the authority of the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to prohibit the specification of any defined area as a disposal site for discharges of materials into waters of the United States, or to restrict the use of any defined area for specification as a disposal site, once the Secretary of the Army has issued a permit for dredged or fill material.

To understand what is going on here, a little background on mountaintop removal is needed. Under the Clean Water Act, the Army Corps of Engineers is granted the authority to issue permits allowing for the discharge of pollutants or the placement of dredge and fill material into our nation’s waterways. Permits under section 404 of the Clean Water Act—intended to be used to allow the use of fill or dredge for the construction of levees, bridges, or other structures in or around water—are generally easier to get than 402 permits, which control the discharge of pollutants into lakes and streams. A court ruling that goes back over a decade established that the Corps can allow mountaintop removal operations to fill in valleys and streams with their waste material under 404 permits, as though these valleys and streams were somehow construction sites instead of dumping grounds.

            The ruling this week stated that the Administrator of the EPA has the authority “to deny or restrict the use of any defined area for specification (including the withdrawal of specification) as a disposal site “whenever he determines” the discharge will have an “unacceptable adverse effect” on identified environmental resources.” That is, the EPA, even though the Army Corps of Engineers has granted a 404 permit, can still determine that a valley fill would pollute or otherwise harm the environment and revoke the permit.

            So the EPA Fair Play Act would tie the hands of the EPA. No matter how bad a valley fill or other disposal of overburden might be, once the Corps issued a 404 permit, the EPA could do nothing to protect our rivers and streams.

            It is unsurprising that Joe Manchin, a strong supporter of the mining industry, would reintroduce this measure. West Virginia’s other Senator, Jay Rockefeller, supports the bill. He has at times stood his ground against King Coal, but in more recent years has grown friendlier to the industry. I imagine that this bill could get a lot of support in Congress, passing the Senate and House. We can hope that it receives a veto from president Obama.

EPA: More Than Half of Our Rivers in Poor Shape

The EPA has found that more than half of this country’s rivers are in poor shape, with only 21 percent found to be in good condition. Most of the rivers are the victims of nutrient pollution from phosphates and nitrates that are washed into the waterways from farms, urban areas and sewers. This is in general what is called nonpoint source pollution, meaning that it doesn’t flow into the river by a pipe or culvert, but is washed in with general drainage from the adjacent land.

            Believe it or not, there has been progress in cleaning up our streams and lakes since the enactment of the Clean Water Act over 40 years ago. And at least the Cuyahoga doesn’t catch fire anymore. But to have 55 percent of our rivers—70 percent in the eastern part of our country—to be suffering badly from pollution is unacceptable. We can do better than that.

OK, The Cuyahoga no longer burns, but our waters are still impaired.

Senator Jay Rockefeller to Retire From Senate: This Is Not a Good Thing

West Virginia Senator Jay Rockefeller announced today that he will not be seeking a sixth term in the Senate, giving the usual line of spending more time with his family as the reason for his retirement from public office.

Rockefeller has, for the most part, been very supportive of the coal mining industry. In 2010 he introduced legislation that would have placed a two-year moratorium on the EPA’s ability to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. And he has taken no serious legislative action to restrict or slow down mountaintop removal.

            He has nonetheless been good at supporting miners. He says that the Senate achievement of which he is most proud is the measure he sponsored in 1992 that was aimed at preserving retirement benefits for miners and their widows and children.

            Despite his support for coal, the industry and its supporters are now accusing Rockefeller of abandoning them. Rockefeller supports his fellow Democrat, President Obama, who has made efforts to roll back some of the most egregious rule-making left over from the George W. Bush administration that gave coal companies almost carte blanche to tear down mountains, fill in valleys, and pollute the streams of Appalachia.

            It’s hard for me to feel bad about the retirement of a Senator who has supported mountaintop removal and scuttled action on global warming, but with Rockefeller’s retirement, the prospects for the mountains of Appalachia, as well as the health of the planet, may have worsened. Shelly Moore Capito, who currently represents West Virginia’s second congressional district, has vowed to run for Rockefeller’s seat. In a state that has swung from being solidly Democratic to being a GOP stronghold, her success in gaining this Senate seat is most assured. (Indeed, the politics of the state have shifted so far to the right that Rockefeller may have lost to Capito if he has chosen to run for a sixth term.)

Capito co-sponsored the “Stop the War on Coal Act,” that would, among other things, loosen rules for the storage of coal ash and gut aspects of the Clean Water Act. It’s a wish list for the coal industry. She has also authored legislation that would hamstring the EPA’s ability to do its job.

Rockefeller has been no environmental champion, but at least he hasn’t worked to worsen the situation in West Virginia and the rest of Appalachia. With his retirement, it looks like that’s exactly what we will get.

Good News: Federal Appeals Court Rules That the EPA Has the Authority to Regulate Greenhouse Gasses

The ability of the EPA to regulate the gasses that are warming our world was affirmed today in a Federal Appeals Court decision that ruled that the agency was “unambiguously correct” in its use of existing law to curb global warming. Several states and greenhouse gas emitting industries had challenged the move by the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate CO2 and other global warming gasses.

            I’m certain that this decision will be appealed to the Supreme Court and, considering the present rightward political leaning of the Court, this may only be a temporary victory for people and the planet. It is nonetheless good news. 

An Image of Environmental and Social Degradation or Kiddie Porn?

Maria Gunnoe, a prominent opponent of mountaintop removal who has won the Goldman Environmental Prize, had been invited to testify at a hearing on the Spruce Coal Mine by the House energy and resources subcommittee.

Besides her testimony, she received something she wasn’t expecting: a questioning by police on suspicion of child pornography.

Gunnoe, who has testified for the committee four times before, had always felt that the members of the committee had not made eye contact with her, essentially dismissing her testimony with visible lack of interest or engagement. So Gunnoe decided to grab the subcommittee’s attention with a compelling image of West Virginians living with mountaintop removal mining. She chose a photo by noted photographer Katie Falkenberg that shows a five-year-old girl sitting in a tub of water polluted by mountaintop mining. The bathwater is a deep disturbing reddish orange. The photo, as well as other images of mountaintop mining can be found here.

The photo was pulled from the presentation by Doug Lamborn, the leader of the energy and mineral resources subcommittee, which is under the House Committee on Natural Resources. A GOP house member, Lamborn was noted as the most conservative member of Congress by the National Journal in 2009 and 2010. He is against energy conservation measures and for ramping up the extraction of domestic fossil fuels.

            Lamborn says that he did not see the photograph and relied on the judgment of his staff, who said that the photo was inappropriate. The hearing concerned recent actions by the EPA, which is currently appealing a ruling by a federal judge that the agency overstepped its authority in vetoing a permit for the Spruce mine.

            After her presentation, police questioned Gunnoe for 45 minutes.

If only we had more people like Gunnoe, who bravely stand up to the power of big money and King Coal. It’s too bad that besides politely ignoring her, the GOP controlled energy and resources subcommittee censors her presentation and harasses her.

            Mountaintop mining has brought West Virginia nothing good. It has destroyed communities, depressed wages, and filled in hundreds of miles of streams as it has flatted hundreds of mountains. It passes the muster of law only because the Appalachians are sparsely populated with individuals who are poorer than the rest of the U.S. and unused to working the levers of power. If things were otherwise, kingpins of Big Coal would be locked up along with the scum who peddle kiddie porn.

Good News For Appalachia

I have voiced my reservations about the Obama administration’s record on the environment. So it’s heartening to have some good news coming out of Washington. The EPA is appealing a ruling by a District Court judge over the permitting of a huge mountaintop removal mine in West Virginia. This is great news for Appalachia and the rest of our country.

            The mine, which had been permitted by the Army Corps of Engineers, would bury about seven miles of streams near the historic town of Blair, West Virginia. The Corps has been the department issuing mountaintop removal permits since the establishment of the Surface Mine Control and Reclamation Act, the legislation that controls mountaintop removal and other surface mining operations, in the late seventies. The EPA is stepping up to the plate here and, in my opinion, doing the job that it should have been doing all along in the case of this horrendous mining practice: protecting the streams and fresh waters of this country.

            In their move to revoke the permit, the EPA said the proposed mine would use “destructive and unsustainable mining practices that jeopardize the health of Appalachian communities and the clean water on which they depend.” I think every mountaintop mine fits that description, so in many ways this move by the EPA is a day late and a dollar short for around 500 mine sites in Appalachia.

            But good news for the environment is so rare, so I am thankful for this recent development. Kudos to the EPA and the Obama administration.