How's Obama Doing on Our Transition from Dirty Coal to Clean Energy?

By Jeff Biggers, AlterNet. Posted April 28, 2009.

On April 8th, however, in the same area that a boulder broke loose from a mountaintop removal operation and killed a 3-year-old boy in his home in 2004, the EPA directed the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to revoke "nationwide 21" mining permits in southwest Virginia.

On April 27th, DOI chief Ken Salazar announced the Obama administration's intention to reverse the Bush's administration change of a poorly enforced 1983 buffer zone rule that supposedly prevented coal companies from dumping waste within 100 feet of a stream.

The response from the Appalachian coalfields was cautious.

"Interior Secretary Ken Salazar made it clear at his press conference that the 1983 rule would continue to be implemented as it has in the past - meaning it will not be enforced against waste dumping. He stated that coal production would not be affected and that current coal operations would not be affected and was vague with respect to future actions," said attorney Joe Lovett, from the Appalachian Center for the Economy and the Environment. "Therefore, Interior's action will not provide the protection essential for Appalachian mountain streams under the surface mining law or the Clean Water Act."

"The stream buffer zone rule is a decades-old regulation that has prohibited surface and coal-mining activities from disturbing areas within 100 feet of streams. For years the agency has ignored the law and allowed thousands of miles of headwater and perennial streams in Appalachia to be permanently buried by coal companies under millions of tons of waste generated by mountaintop removal coal mining."

7) Congress With a Mountain Backbone: The Clean Water Protection Act: Or, Lamar Alexander, Benjamin Carden, Frank Pallone, John Yarmuth and Dave Reichert Are True American Heroes
March 24, 2009

If the EPA and DOI ultimately drag their feet in the muck of the machinations and compromises of the coal industry on the mountaintop removal issue, a growing movement in Congress introduced the Clean Water Protection Act this spring to amend the Clean Water Act and prevent the dumping of toxic mining waste from mountaintop removal coal mining into headwater streams and rivers. Coal state senators Alexander (R-TN) and Carden (D-MD) and coal state representative Yarmuth (D-KY) have shown particular vision and courage.

"It is not necessary to destroy our mountaintops in order to have enough coal," said Senator Alexander. "Millions of tourists spend tens of millions of dollars in Tennessee every year to enjoy the natural beauty of our mountains - a beauty that, for me, and I believe for most Tennesseans, makes us proud to live here."

8) Who Killed the Miners' Jobs? Massey Foresaw Layoffs in February, Long Before the EPA or other Environmental Decisions.
February 4, 2009

As part of their 4th quarter 2008 Earnings Call to financial analysts, mountaintop removal giant Massey Energy executives crowed that "2008 was a very exciting and successful year for Massey, by many measures, the most successful in our history. As you know, we undertook a very aggressive expansion plan in late 2007, and our members executed that plan almost to perfection in 2008."

And then, in answering a question that 2010 guidance could produce 10% less, and have an impact the high head count, a Massey executive simply responded with the bottom line of profiteers: "I think the answer would be that we will be able to reduce the workforce with attrition fairly markedly," and, "we also will cut back on salaries."

Bottom line: More coal mining jobs have been lost to the volatile energy markets and profit margins of multinational corporations like Massey or Peabody Energy, which recorded an 8-fold increase in profits in its 2008 4th quarter, than any environmental laws.

9) Georgia On My Mind: Coal-fired Plant Converting to Biomass; Salazar on Offshore Wind; FERC Chair Jon Wellinghoff
March 26, 2009, April 6, 2009 and April 22, 2009

As the BioFuels Digest reported this spring: "In Georgia, the state Public Service Commission (PSC) approved Georgia Power Company's request to convert the Plant Mitchell Unit 3 to a 96 MW biomass power plant, from coal. The unit will utilize wood biomass drawn from a 100 mile radius around the plant, and is scheduled to complete conversion by 2012. In other biomass-to-power news, Xcel Energy filed to add a biomass gasification to its Ashland, Wisconsin plant. The plant would become the largest biomass-based power generator in the Midwest upon completion in 2012."

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