surface coal mining

MSM Loves Bipartisanship…Unless the Issue Is Environmental Policy

by William Yeatman on May 16, 2011

in Blog, Features

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In this era of hyper-partisanship, the mainstream media thinks that bi-partisanship is beautiful…unless both parties agree on an environmental policy, in which case the media invariably recasts the story such that it’s the Green Democrats versus the Dirty Republicans.

On cap-and-trade policy, I’ve noted in a previous post how the media willfully ignores that both parties oppose energy rationing. Instead, you’ll read or hear about the “Republican War on Science,” whenever Congressional climate policy gets rejected by a bipartisan, bicameral vote.

There was another example of this phenomenon last Wednesday. The Energy and Water Subcommittee of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee held a hearing during which there was unanimous bipartisan agreement that the Environmental Protection Agency had overstepped its bounds on a controversial policy regarding  mountaintop removal coal mining in Appalachia.

To me, at least, unanimously bipartisan opposition to a major Presidential policy on an ultra-divisive issue is newsworthy. But there was no mention of it in any of the stories on the hearing that I read. Readers of the stories that I read would have thought that the Democrats and Republicans clashed.

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Primer: President Obama’s War on Domestic Energy Production

by William Yeatman on March 7, 2011

in Blog, Features

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Coal

Clean Water Act: The EPA has invented a “pollutant”— salinity—in order to stop surface coal mining in Appalachia.  It claims that this “pollutant” harms an order of short-lived insect, the Mayfly, which has not been proposed for listing as an endangered species.  The EPA has set a numeric water quality standard for salinity which effectively bars new surface coal mining permits.

Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act: Despite the fact that the 1977 SMCRA explicitly authorizes “valley fills” (a necessary byproduct of surface coal mining in the steep terrain of Appalachia), the Department of the Interior is working on a re-interpretation of the so-called “100 feet buffer rule,” a regulation derivative of SMCRA, which would effectively outlaw valley fills, and, as a result, Appalachian surface coal mining.

Oil and gas

Red Tape: The de jure moratorium on deepwater drilling permits in the Western Gulf ended on 22 October 2011, but the de facto moratorium remains.  Two weeks ago, a federal judge in eastern Louisiana (the same one who overturned the first moratorium, and who then found the Department of the Interior in contempt for issuing an identical, second moratorium), ordered the Interior Department to act on 5 pending permits within 30 days.  Interior is also slow-walking shallow water permits.

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Update on the States

by William Yeatman on February 22, 2011

in Blog, Politics

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New Hampshire

Legislation that would withdraw New Hampshire from a regional energy-rationing scheme gained momentum last week. HB 519, which would pull New Hampshire out of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a cap-and-trade for 10 northeastern States, was approved by the House Science Technology and Energy Committee and endorsed by House Speaker William O’Brien. Two weeks ago, Governor John Lynch (D) preemptively threatened to veto the bill, but Republicans have a veto-proof majority in the State Legislature, so if they stick together, they can end this energy tax.

Kentucky

Outrage at the EPA’s campaign against coal is bipartisan in Kentucky. Last month, a top Democratic lawmaker, Jim Gooch, called for “secession” from the green regulatory state. Last week, by an overwhelming bipartisan vote, the State Senate Natural Resources and Energy Committee passed a bill that would make Kentucky a “sanctuary state” out of reach of the EPA’s “overreaching regulatory power.” The symbolic legislation is expected to easily win passage in the full Senate.

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Obama Administration Plans Second Front in War on Appalachian Coal Production

by William Yeatman on February 2, 2011

in Blog

Last week Tim Huber of the Associated Press broke news on yet another front being opened in Obama’s war on Appalachian surface coal mining (I blogged about the other front yesterday).

The AP story pertained to a controversial rule derivative of the 1977 Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act (SMCRA), known as the “100 feet buffer rule. As its name would suggest, it basically prohibits mining waste from being deposited within 100 feet of intermittent or perennial streams. According to the AP article, the Obama Administration’s preferred interpretation of this rule would cost 7,000 mining jobs, almost exclusively in Appalachia. And that’s the Department of the Interior’s own estimate, which is likely a lowball.

Background: The 100 feet buffer rule was largely ignored until the 1990s, when environmentalists initiated lawsuits alleging that valley fills constitute mine waste, and are therefore in violation of the buffer rule.

[Valley fills are a necessary byproduct of surface mining in the steep terrain of Appalachia. When you dig up coal, the loosened dirt and rock, known as overburden, have more volume than when they were compacted. Much of this overburden is used to reconstruct the approximate original contour of the mined terrain. However, there is almost always “extra” overburden, and this excess dirt and rock is placed in the valley at the base of the mine. This is known as a valley fill]

The problem with the environmentalists’ reasoning is that SMCRA clearly “contemplates that valley fills will be used in the disposal process,” to quote the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. So it doesn’t make sense that the law would both authorize and prohibit the same practice. President George W. Bush put the issue to rest in his second term. His Department of the Interior undertook a formal rule-making to exclude valley fills from the 100 feet buffer rule.

President Barack Obama, however, had campaigned on a promise to “bankrupt” the coal industry, and shortly after assuming office, he had the Department of the Interior try to reverse the Bush rule change, and thereby subject the Appalachian coal industry to an army of environmental lawyers. But a federal court slapped down this effort, because the Interior Department had tried to impose the rule change without a formal rulemaking. Thus rebuffed, the administration promised to revisit the issue within two years, and instead used a different tack to inhibit Appalachian coal production.

Which brings us to the AP story. Evidently, the Obama administration has been working on a new version of the 100 feet buffer rule, and their preferred choice is a doozy. According to the AP,

The office, a branch of the Interior Department, estimated that the protections would trim coal production to the point that an estimated 7,000 of the nation’s 80,600 coal mining jobs would be lost. Production would decrease or stay flat in 22 states, but climb 15 percent in North Dakota, Wyoming and Montana.

As Appalachia is the only region where valley fills are used frequently in coal mining, it stands to lose the most. Then again, that’s the point. This would be the second major business-crushing regulation tailor made for Appalachian coal country (to learn more about the first, click here and here).