| By One Citizen - (Promoted from the comments) Don't get me wrong. Senator Byrd's statement has the ring of truth, and I do believe that he truly cares about West Virginia. But the real truth behind his above statement that "Major coal-fired power plants and coal operators operating in West Virginia have wisely already embraced this reality" is at the link he provided: The Mountaineer plant emits about 9 million tons of CO2 a year. The project will capture more than 100,000 tons of CO2 a year, or about 1.5 percent of the plant's total. I had to read it twice to make sure I that got it. They're only capturing a lousy 1.5 percent. At that rate I'd have been too embarrassed to even mentioned it, because the same article also reveals The company has applied for more than $300 million in federal stimulus funds to install a commercial-scale carbon dioxide capture and storage system. The total cost is estimated at more than $600 million. In other words, they got Senator Byrd to brag about their little shill operation. Notice that in the same article AEP President Morris salivates over landing future juicy rate increases. Has the last six months with coal-financed "Democrats" really got Senator Byrd taking the bait? Because the rest of us have long been bleeding from the hook and gagging on the line. Don't be surprised when more and more real Democrats start spitting the sinker right back at those coal fired cadre of "Democrats". What I'm getting at here is that spending stimulus money for coal-fired projects does absolutely nothing to mitigate the pollution right here where coal is being mined, puts only a few West Virginians to work during a brief construction phase, and gobbles up stimulus money which could be better spent at other far more productive "green" projects. So the question at this point would be, why is a cadre of "coal state Democrats" spending so much of my favorite Senator's precious time helping coal operators become even more of a corporate welfare dynasty than it already is? Apparently they're striving to get him to forget that back in 1986 billions of dollars worth of Super Tax Credits were diverted away from real Appalachian jobs programs only to subsidize coal operators purchase of giant draglines and other mountaintop removal equipment efficiently putting thousands of West Virginians out of work in the first place. Even now millions of our state tax dollars are subsidize coal-fired boondoggles that will cost WV far more than will ever pay back due to the local pollution alone! Perhaps the coalfield cadre of "Democrats" somehow missed it when Forbes Magazine rated West Virginia as dead last on its list of "green" states, stating, "Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, Indiana and, at No. 50, West Virginia. All suffer from a mix of toxic waste, lots of pollution and consumption and no clear plans to do anything about it. Expect them to remain that way." Hmm. That was back in '07. What have our coalfield Democrats done to change that problem? Or perhaps they don't see it as a problem. many of us do.. Just today President Obama hosted a national jobs forum. Vice President Biden recently said "Recovery Through Retrofit is a blueprint that will create good green jobs - jobs that can't be outsourced, and jobs that will be the cornerstones of a 21st-Century economy." I don't understand why West Virginia offers the least low-income weatherization assistance of any state. Especially when our Governor is a "Democrat", both chambers of our state legislature are held by "Democrats", and 4 out of five of our Congressional representatives are Democrats. I mean COME ON! WV has the lowest median household income of any state. And instead of getting a decent break on our power rates for putting up with the pollution, we get a stadium for a lousy minor league baseball team. Senator Byrd obviously understands that coal operators and coal-fired power plants will never voluntarily help West Virginia move towards energy independence. Simply because it is against their corporate interest to do so. Instead, they're compelled by their nature to see to it that nothing will replace coal. So they will always lobby to gobble up all of the state and federal subsidies, while playing like they're earnest in helping to develop a replacement. It goes without saying that large corporations will always make as much money as possible, and they'll always try to do it as efficiently as they can. Since their biggest obstacle lies in leveraging political leaders to mitigate environmental regulations, and judicial leaders to ignore laws, no sense of civic duty ever completely halts the corporate machine's never ending grind towards capital. But it is up to our justice system, our regulators, and our political leaders to keep them from killing people. Which is exactly what they're doing, make no mistake. So I applaud Senator Byrd's effort to give public notice that we should all demand truth and justice from our system. He's lived here long enough to have witnessed West Virginia slide from a rich, diversified economy with a broad manufacturing base towards what essentially looks more and more like a mono-economy. During that same period, West Virginia's political system has devolved from what was basically a plutocracy into a well-greased dystopian coalocracy. For example, prior to the last election, the coal industry spent $35 million in a campaign outreach effort in primary and caucus states to rally public support for coal-fired electricity. On top of that, the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity lobbyists spent a whoppin' $10,465,276. source. Now, suddenly, my Senator informs me that he just spent six months listening to coal state Democrats tell him that the only way to "progress" is to go backwards. So forgive me if I'm skeptical about anything any member of either party tries to sell when it comes to justifying the giveaway of millions to help the coal industry continue to poison my water, screw up my roads, and underfund my kid's education. Senator Byrd didn't have to be a "treehugger" to have noticed the dire cost of coal pollution here. But he stopped shot of mentioning that cleaning up the hundreds of toxic coal slurry impoundments strewn across WV offers great potential for shovel-ready jobs. Yett it's pretty obvious what's going on when none of the coal-fired "Democrats" ever publicly mentions how "green" it is to retrofit the infrastructures of each of their communities by using stimulus funds for remediation. Now I don't mind that stimulus funds are now being used to supply water to coalfield communities whose aquifer has been poisoned by coal industry, although it is sort of suspicious when the Governor's website hides it. No, my tax dollars are fine helping those folks out, even though it was Manchin's DEP that let Massey get by with killing their aquifer in the first place. But it gets pretty hard to swallow that Federal Coal, one of three companies responsible for screwing up Boone County's well water, is now blocking the right-of-way for that water project. Could that be an attempt to stall whilst forcing a settlement in the ongoing lawsuit. Yet apparently one coal-state Democrat in particular (Governor Joe Manhin) in particular isn't willing to persuade the coal slurry impoundment operator that what Federal Coal operates qualifies as a fullout toxic dump site. This Prenter situation just seems like a mini-version of the attempt to hold the health care bill hostage. Pretty much confirming that it's not just Don Blankenship toadies, but the entire political system right down to the local county public service district that's gone rotten. Speaking of infrastructure, according to the WV Department of Commerce, WV exports more (coal fired) electricity than any other state. Why isn't the state rolling in cash? Why have we cut back on state highway workers? Why are our coalpatch public school districts always those seized by the state -due to lack of funding? Before you ask what does education have to do with the coal industry being unwilling to embrace the future, you need to understand that far too many of our political leaders mistakenly believe that coal is our most precious natural resource otherwise West Virginia wouldn't be ranked dead last in educational services for our students. It's the Coal Cadre solution for capping the economic burden of those pesky Promise Scholarships. |
