WILLIAMSON — Urging West Virginians to unite in an effort to halt the cancer eating at its coal industry, Sen. H. Truman Chafin, D- Mingo, is pushing for a public voice in the nation’s capital.
“Now is the time for our people to unite and contact our congressional delegation in Washington for support of West Virginia’s most vital industry,” Chafin said, advancing his 13-point argument regarding the coal crisis threatening the state’s livelihood.
The most imminent concern, according to Chafin, is permit delays and the threat of permit rejections, especially for mountaintop mining, and “court interference spurred on by carpetbagger lobby groups.” Courts are re-thinking the views of the federal Clean Water Act as it was interpreted by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in the permitting process.
“Armed with the new judicial reviews of the Clean Water Act, especially as it relates to mountain top removal methods of mining coal, the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) has begun a systematic review of a great many current permits and through its actions is either delaying or in a sense freezing new permits which has also stymied coal investment futures at least for the time being,” Chafin argues in his third point.
Coal companies have consistently laid off miners over the last year. Hobet Mining issued layoff notices to more than 350 workers at its Hobet 21 mountaintop removal complex along the Boone-Lincoln county border last August, due to a court order blocking a new permit which would allow the mine to grow. Massey Energy idled a West Virginia surface mine and is laying off 300 people, it announced earlier this month, while Appalachian Fuel’s mining complex in Boomer has laid off 200 workers, the company announced this week.
The West Virginia Coal Association says more than 2,000 West Virginia miners are unemployed.
Although the Gov. Joe Manchin administration has been moving quietly to work out differences with the new Obama administration regarding permits and seems to be optimistic, Chafin says it is not known really where those negotiations are at this point.
Chafin notes that both houses of the legislature passed similar but not exact forms of the governor’s energy proposals, one of which would have required coal-fired plants, for example, to develop the use of renewable energy resources by 25 percent over the next 10-20 years.
“Coal is not a renewable energy resource,” said Chafin, “but clean coal technology could be implemented, reducing the amount of carbon particles emitted into the air.”
Chafin says that one of the problems with clean coal technology is being able to mine coal in the first place, at the pace of mining currently going on - efforts are underway by a number of environmental groups, mostly made up of out-of-state lobbying groups to end the production of coal all together - both deep and surface mining.
“Their aim is to end the use of carbon-based fuels by ending the production - this means our economic system in West Virginia as we know it would come to an end and, unless our free enterprise system could replace it with other types of jobs, West Virginia would become a dead state with relatively few jobs while the rest of the populace would either be retired or on some form of public assistance,” stressed Chafin.
The senator believes it is very likely that while West Virginia would have to cease coal production, energy producers would still have to buy coal from some other place, such as Illinois which is enjoying a resurgence of pit and long wall mining activities. “I might add that Illinois is the home state of president of the United States.”
Point 8 of Chafin’s views on coal calls attention to the efforts of veteran U.S. Sen. Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va., “who has been doing what he can for us by using parliamentary tactics in Congress to keep further damage to the industry from taking place,” and notes Rep. Nick J. Rahall’s efforts in this respect.
“However, with all the current emphasis on being ‘green’ and saving the planet from global warming, public opinion nationally is steadily growing in opposition,” said Chafin.
He said that, notably, the idea of having a coal-free economy is having an effect, as in North Carolina where an assemblyman proposed a bill which would make it illegal for the state and state-licensed utilities from buying mountaintop coal from West Virginia.
“That is an unprecedented move, one state dictating to another as to how we will conduct our affairs,” Chafin declared.
Although the state’s elected officials are working to alleviate the growing cancer eating away at West Virginia’s coal industry, Chafin asserts it will take the united voice of the public to make a difference in Washington.
“We need to get an aroused populace in West Virginia and, understand this, that it has to be sustained and hell has to be raised in order to protect this vital industry and our jobs. Coal cannot do it alone, but with a unified and strong voice from the public, we can go far to push back this latest and most serious effort to curb and curtail our coal mining industry.”
Urging Mingo Countians to contact their elected representatives at the state and federal level, Chafin said other representatives are working in their communities to get the people to speak up for the industry which sustains their economy.
“Mining can be a dirty job, but once it is completed, it can produce good, usable land, which is at a premium in West Virginia, not to mention the $40-$50 billion worth of wealth it creates in West Virginia through payroll and the support of other economic endeavors in West Virginia. You take that away suddenly and the housing crisis in Florida comes to an end with a mass out-migration of our people to retirement villages and to occupy foreclosed properties using a government subsidized check every month to make the payments.”
--------------
Entire article posted -
source
