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(Reposted in case you missed it the first time. - promoted by Clem Guttata)
By Clem Guttata
Coal CEOs get political representation, what about the rest of us?
Logan County Commission President Art Kirkendoll requested a meeting and he got it. Michael Browning reported (emphasis mine):
Kirkendoll has asked Gov. Joe Manchin for a meeting with him, commission presidents from Lincoln, Boone, Mingo and Kanawha counties, the EPA, the Division of Environmental Protection, Congressman Nick Rahall, Congresswoman Shelley Moore Capito, representatives from U.S. senators Robert C. Byrd and Jay Rockefeller's offices and officials from the coal industry.
Today at 3 p.m., the group will meet privately in the governor's office to discuss coal's future and the economic impact it has on the state and nation.
"This meeting was way overdue to have all the major coal producers' officials together with the EPA and the DEP, the congressional people and the commission presidents from the five major coal-producing counties that spend the money and try to create activities on coal tax," Kirkendoll said. "Everybody that has a stake in what we do will be there. Instead of each of us writing letters, I wanted to get us all together - the people who are investing their money, who are spending the money, the people who are making laws and making the rules - so that we can ask how do we a qualify permits that are solid and work. I sent the governor a letter and he thought it was a great idea so he put the meeting together."
Kirkendoll doesn't think anyone downstream has a stake in coal mining. He doesn't think it matters that we drink the same water, breath the same air, or--point of fact--actually pay for the electricity that makes that coal valuable.
...the list of expected attendees includes Massey Energy President Don Blankenship, CONSOL Energy CEO Brett Harvey and International Coal Group President Ben Hatfield. Two members of Congress will be there, as will county commissioners from the state's major coal producing counties, and top officials from a dozen or more other coal companies. It's a big deal to get all those folks in the same room, and it seems like the public ought to know what is said.
With enough twists to fill a pretzel factor, Gov. Manchin and his communications director, Matt Turner, said there was no need to invite potential critics of coal mining practices because:
"the meeting is not about environmental regulations." (AP - via)
"This is not about the environment. This is about the economic plight the (coalfield local government officials) are being put in." (source)
The meeting happened this afternoon outside the Governor's Mansion in a party tent literally bought and paid for by coal industry donors, (I kid you not... you couldn't make this stuff up) and was followed by a press conference.
Nov. 10, 2009 - CHARLESTON, W.Va. - Gov. Joe Manchin, joined by West Virginia elected officials: U.S. Sen. Jay Rockefeller, Congressman Nick Joe Rahall, Congresswoman Shelley Moore Capito, Senate President Earl Ray Tomblin, House Speaker Rick Thompson and various other state leaders, county commissioners, representatives from the coal industry and labor met to discuss the future of coal in West Virginia during a press conference. Photos by: Steven W. Rotsch
West Virginia political leaders promised Tuesday to speak "with one voice" to clarify the Obama administration's proposals to more strictly regulate mountaintop removal coal mining.
Gov. Joe Manchin, Sen. Jay Rockefeller, and Reps. Nick J. Rahall and Shelley Moore Capito said they would join forces to seek a high-level White House meeting to raise coal industry concerns about tougher permit reviews instituted by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
"It's about the economy of West Virginia," Manchin said at a news conference after a two-hour, closed-door meeting with industry leaders. "We're just trying to find that balance right now."
I'd like someone to ask Gov. Manchin what it is that he's trying to "balance"? As far as I can tell, "balance" is his code word for stopping any tighter environmental regulation enforcement.
Coal company CEOs have been guaranteed a voice in Washington. The Gov. of West Virginia, Sen. Rockefeller, Rep. Rahall and Rep. Capito stood at a podium this afternoon and promised to speak "with one voice" in Washington, DC on their behalf.
The citizens of West Virginia did not elect these officials to represent coal company executives, they serve to represent us all.
What is good for Don Blankenship is not what is good for all of West Virginia. What is good for CONSOL Energy CEO Brett Harvey is not what is good for all of West Virginia (just ask the residents of the Dunkard Creek watershed). What is good for International Coal Group President Ben Hatfield is not what is good for all of West Virginia.
We need political leaders who will lead for all West Virginians, not political followers catering to the needs of coal company CEOs. We need political leaders who will ask not what they can do for coal, but what they can do for West Virginia. We need political leaders who can honor both our heritage and our future.
Good evening, West Virginia Blue readers. This is your open thread to discuss all things Hill-related. Use this thread to praise or bash Congresscritters, share a juicy tip, ask questions, offer critiques and suggestions, or post manifestos.
Good afternoon, West Virginia Blue readers. This is your afternoon open thread to discuss all things Hill-related. Use this thread to praise or bash Congresscritters, share a juicy tip, ask questions, offer critiques and suggestions, or post manifestos.
Some of the Hill news that's fit to blog is over the fold...
Press Conference Cont., Meeting with Sen. Rockefeller's State Director
In December, a climate change rally was held outside of the old Daniel Boone Hotel in Charleston, along with a press conference in the lobby. The building currently houses U.S. Sen. John D. Rockefeller's office.
People gathered in support of a strong climate change bill and later, some would go on to deliver a letter and banner to Rockefeller's staff and ask for the senator's support.
The media did little to nothing with the rally, and as you all know you need the media to help garner public support for your issue, so I'm posting it now since health care reform is getting butchered (as expected) and then once that gets shot between the eyes (as expected), hopefully climate change will actually become an issue AGAIN, this year (especially in West Virginia), since our country's economy is still hurting and fixing the problem will actually create jobs.
So let's make climate an issue in 2010 and get our Congressional delegation to push for a 35% reduction in CO2 emmissions by 2020 and create much needed jobs in the process! Wreck the world, then save it and make money off of doing so. That's the American way!
***Groups represented at rally and press conference: 1SKY WV (Andrew Porter), WV Environmental Council (Jesse Johnson), Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition (Mel Tyree), UE 170 (John Thompson), Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Charleston (Rev. Rose Edington)***
Paging Senator Rockefeller. Senator Jay Rockefeller to the illegally bugged white courtesy phone, please.
No one - except, you know, us dirty hillbilly bloggers and pretty much everyone else - could have predictedthis:
The FBI illegally collected more than 2,000 U.S. telephone call records between 2002 and 2006 by invoking terrorism emergencies that did not exist or simply persuading phone companies to provide records, according to internal bureau memos and interviews.
...
E-mails obtained by The Washington Post detail how counterterrorism officials inside FBI headquarters did not follow their own procedures that were put in place to protect civil liberties. The stream of urgent requests for phone records also overwhelmed the FBI communications analysis unit with work that ultimately was not connected to imminent threats.
A Justice Department inspector general's report due out this month is expected to conclude that the FBI frequently violated the law with its emergency requests, bureau officials confirmed.
But I'm sure it was all in emergency circumstances when there was no time to apply for legal warrants to do this, right?
FBI general counsel Valerie Caproni said in an interview Monday that the FBI technically violated the Electronic Communications Privacy Act when agents invoked nonexistent emergencies to collect records.
"We should have stopped those requests from being made that way," she said. The after-the-fact approvals were a "good-hearted but not well-thought-out" solution to put phone carriers at ease, she said. In true emergencies, Caproni said, agents always had the legal right to get phone records, and lawyers have now concluded there was no need for the after-the-fact approval process. "What this turned out to be was a self-inflicted wound," she said.
The story goes on to say the agents were working "under stress" to stop terrorist attacks. The problems with that kind of rationalizing are that it allows for lazy investigators to take unnecessary shortcuts and those who do not safeguard liberties in the name of security are surely to not have or deserve either.
Don't worry about Rockefeller getting shafted for the purpose of "cutting the federal budget", fellow citizens. When Harry X-Mas gets to passing out the porkponies under the upcoming Cap and Trade bill, Senator Rockefeller (Coalocrat-WV) will have learned to dig in his heels and "bargain" us all a lump of coal in the form of even more subsidies for coal operators and call it his "Green Jobs Initiative". Ignoring the fact that mining more coal means poisoning more of his constituents.
Isn't it time we officially outlaw the nickname "Mountain State" (due to the love of flattening our mountains by coal operators who run things here) and revert to the age old "Panhandle State" tag to accurately reflect how our politicians let the coal companies panhandle ALL of the federal subsidies? Not to mention how our politicians in turn panhandle from the operators.
But you don't have to take my word for it. It isn't any wonder since Manchin's Stimulus Package website fails to take advantage of, or even mentions the "Green Jobs Act" portion of the Stim package. In contrast our neighboring state of Virginia publicly notes outright that the stimulus package included $3.95 billion for training and employment services-including $750 million for research and job training projects in "green jobs," health care, and other high-demand and emerging occupations.
I say we rename our WVU sports teams "The Mighty Panhandlers".
Mountaineer fans should venture below the fold to see why I'm suggesting that they substitute sooty black in place of the traditional blue and instead of the rich gold that adorns their arena heroes, why blood red would be more fitting tribute to the people who live here.
In the past 50 years, there have been 8 different men who have served as Governor of West Virginia. In summary:
* Joe Manchin - Democrat 2005-present
* Bob Wise - Democrat 2001-2005
* Cecil H. Underwood - Republic 1997-2001
* Gaston Caperton - Democrat 1989-1997
* Arch A. Moore, Jr. - Republic 1985-1989
* John D. Rockefeller IV - Democrat 1977-1985
* Arch A. Moore, Jr. - Republic 1969-1977
* William Wallace Barron - Democrat 1961-1965
* Cecil H. Underwood - Republic 1957-1961
* Hulett C. Smith - Democratic 1965-1969
It is instructive to consider what they did before they became Governor, as well as what they did afterward.
Joe Manchin, Elected 2004, Re-Elected 2008
Previous offices: Secretary of State (2000), State Senate (1986-96), House of Delegates (1982-86)
Ran for Gov. once before, lost in Dem. Primary (1996)
Bob Wise, Elected 2000
Previous offices: State Senate (1980-1982), US House of Rep. 1982-2000
Post-Gov.: President of the Alliance for Excellent Education,
Cecil H. Underwood, Elected 1956, Re-Elected 1996
Previous offices: House of Delegates (1944-56)
Between terms: defeated for US Senate (1960); defeated for Gov. in 1964, 1968 (primary), and 1976.
Gaston Caperton, Elected 1988, Re-Elected 1992
Previous offices: none.
Post-Gov.: President and CEO of College Board
Arch A. Moore, Jr., Elected 1968, Re-Elected 1972; Re-Elected 1984
Previous offices: House of Delegates (1952); US House of Rep. (1956-1968)
Between terms: Lost Senate race (1978), Lost Gov. race (1980)
Post-Gov.: served 3+ years in federal prison after pleading guilty to five felonies
Jay Rockefeller, Elected 1976, Re-election 1980
Previous offices: House of Delegates (1966); Sec. of State (1968)
Lost Gov. race in 1972
Post-Gov.: US Senate (1984 - present)
Hulett C. Smith, Elected 1964
Previous offices: none
Chairman of W.Va. Democratic Party 1956-1962
Ran for Gov. once before, lost in Dem. Primary (1960)
Post-Gov.: "After leaving office, Smith returned to his insurance agency in Beckley and assumed duties as secretary-treasurer of two area hospitals. In retirement, he became an outspoken advocate for the environment. He later served on the National Council for Revision of State Constitutions, the Judicial Inquiry Commission, and as a director of First Lady Rosalyn Carter's Friendship Force."
William Wallace Barron, Elected 1960
Previous offices: House of Delegates (1950-1953), Attorney General (1956)
Post-Gov.: Served four-year sentence for jury tampering stemming from bribery trial related to his term in Gov.
Here's a summary of what offices each candidate held before their first election to Governor. Their highest held office is listed in bold.
* US Congress: Wise, Moore * Secretary of State: Manchin, Rockefeller * Attorney General: Barron * State Senate: Manchin, Wise
* House of Delegates: Underwood, Manchin, Wise, Rockefeller, Moore, Barron
* None: Caperton, Smith
After their first term as Gov.:
* Rockefeller won many Senate elections
* Underwood and Moore both lost Senate races but returned to the Gov. mansion in non-consecutive terms
* Wise, Caperton and Smith did not run for elected office again.
* Moore and Barron served multi-year jail sentences
Finally, in campaigns since 1976, Wise, Caperton won on their first attempts, but Manchin, Underwood, Moore and Rockefeller all lost in their first race.
It's a rhetorical question. Of course he doesn't. At least not the real Pope.
Now let's ask a real question of our rhetorical Pope (depicted above). Did Rockefeller really believe that his "public option" had even half a chance? Really?
Jay certainly acted all holier-than-thou when he tore apart Dr. Howard Dean for criticizing the Senate bill the other day. Funny, but I never heard Rockefeller get fired up like that during entire time congressional Neocons were staving off the much-needed intelligence oversight of the Bush administration by Rockefeller's panel. Even when Cheney tried foisting the responsibility for torture over onto Congress, Rockefeller never got as upset as he did at Howard Dean.
There's got to be some reason for his outburst. Rockefeller certainly didn't get torqued when Obama abandoned his public option amendment. There is always the strong possibility that Rockefeller's bargaining away of real reforms for giant giveaways to the insurance industry may be connected to how the health industry stocks jumped as an immediate reaction to what his Senate Finance Committee passed. Check it out at this link.
Good afternoon, WVa Blue readers. This is your afternoon open thread to discuss all things Hill-related. Use this thread to praise or bash Congresscritters, share a juicy tip, ask questions, offer critiques and suggestions, or post manifestos.
As always, this is a crosspost from CongressMatters. This is the important news of the day. Okay, maybe only some of it. So if you disagree, go watch CSPAN. Or watch your government in neutral on CSPAN2.
Sen. Rockefeller and Sen. Lieberman spoke back to back on the floor of the Senate just now.
I posted a version of this diary at DailyKos on Saturday morning. Thank you to everyone who engaged in a constructive dialogue on the topic there and on Facebook over the weekend.
If you're not really sure what "Clean Coal" is, that's easily forgiven. Clean Coal has meant a lot of different things to a lot of different people. Many decades ago, one enterprising company sold "clean coal" that burned with less smoke in your home heating furnace. Today, the term usually refers to carbon capture and storage (CCS) or coal-to-liquid fuel (CTL).
The Obama administration and leading figures in Congress are still pushing for tens of billions of dollars of investments in "cleaner coal." With a pause in consideration on the energy and climate change legislation, it's a good time to ask... just what we would we get in return for that investment?
:::
For those who like to cut to the chase, here's the short answer. Carbon capture and storage is risky and expensive. Coal to liquid only makes sense if you ignore carbon emissions or if expect we'll lose access to foreign sources of oil. But, read on. There's another major challenge you probably aren't aware of.
Sadly, although it might make little economic or scientific sense, the political logic behind clean coal is overwhelming. Coal is mined in some politically potent states-Illinois, Montana, West Virginia, Wyoming-and the coal industry spends millions on lobbying. The end result of the debate is all too likely to resemble Congress's corn-based ethanol mandates: legislation that employs appealing buzzwords to justify subsidies to a politically favored constituency-while actually worsening the problem it seeks to solve.
The Meigs piece is good at laying out the basics of carbon capture and storage, but an even more detailed look at the economics is provided by Richard Heinberg, writing for the Solutions Journal. (All emphasis in quotes is mine.)
The "clean coal" argument runs like this: America is brimming with cheap coal, which provides almost half our electricity and is the most carbon-intensive of the conventional fossil fuels. The nation will need an enormous amount of energy over the next few decades, but renewable sources just aren't ready to provide all-or even the bulk-of that energy. Meanwhile, preventing catastrophic climate change requires that we stop venting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. It is possible to capture and store the CO2 that would otherwise be emitted from burning coal, and elements of carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology are already in use on a small scale. Put all of these factors together and the case for government funding of research and development of "clean coal" seems strong.
However, several recent studies of US coal supplies suggest that much that we think we know about coal is wrong. If these studies are correct, the argument for investing in "clean coal" becomes tenuous on economic grounds alone. These studies call into question the one "fact" that both pro-coal and anti-coal lobbies have taken for granted: that the US has a virtually limitless supply of cheap coal.
Back in April, Democrat Rep. Nick Rahall (WV-03), spoke to this unpleasant truth. He noted "the state's most productive coal seams likely will be exhausted in 20 years." The backlash from in-state coal interests was strong. Rahall has not spoken about coal supplies since, and for that brief moment of truth his consequence is a coal-industry funded primary challenger.
What would it take for Rep. Rahall to say something like this? Back to the Heinberg piece for the answer...
Doubts were first raised in a book-length 2007 report by the National Academy of Sciences titled "Coal: Research and Development to Support National Energy Policy" (1), which noted that "Present estimates of coal reserves are based upon methods that have not been reviewed or revised since - 1974," and concluded that a newer and better assessment "may substantially reduce the number of years' supply."
Also in 2007, an energy analytics organization founded by a member of the German Parliament, Energy Watch Group (2), released a study of US and world coal supplies concluding that global coal production will reach a peak and begin to decline sometime around 2025, and that US coal production will peak only slightly later-perhaps by 2030 or 2035.
Last December the USGS issued a report (3) on the nation's largest and most productive coalfield, in Wyoming, finding that, at current prices, only about six percent of the coal can be profitably mined; if coal prices soared, then more of the coal would be recoverable-but then coal wouldn't be economically competitive with other energy sources.
But I keep hearing we have hundreds of years of coal left in the United States. That has to be correct doesn't it?
America's coal resources are indeed vast-none of the studies claims otherwise. However, during the past century, coal reserves (the portion of total coal resources that can be mined profitably with existing technologies) shrank much faster than could be accounted for by the depletion of those resources through mining. That is because geologists are doing a better job now of taking into account "restrictions" that make most coal impractical to mine-factors having to do with location, depth, seam thickness, and coal quality. In recent years, some nations have reduced their booked coal reserves by 90 percent or more on the basis of new, more realistic surveys. The National Academy of Sciences report mentioned above is essentially a plea for an updated US national survey, and it offers abundant reasons for thinking that such a survey would almost certainly reveal a much smaller reserve base than the one on which current supply forecasts are founded.
Moreover, when it comes to forecasting future coal supplies the official agencies seem to have been asking the wrong question, namely, "When will the nation run out of coal?" The customary answer is, "Not for a couple of hundred years or more"-which is a sufficiently long period for current energy planning. But more relevant questions are, "When will it no longer be possible to increase the rate at which coal is being extracted?", and "When will coal cease to be an economically competitive energy source?" These are addressed in the Energy Watch Group study, which reasons that, long before the nation runs out of coal, production will peak and start to decline due to the depletion of easily accessible, high-quality deposits. Already some of America's most important coal regions are long past their glory days, and recent field surveys by the USGS (including the one cited above) suggest that the capacities of even the most abundant coalfields in the nation have been over-estimated.
So what? As long as we've got coal to mine, shouldn't we try to burn it as cleanly as possible?
A 2007 MIT study, "The Future of Coal" (4), found that if just 60 percent of the CO2 from US coal-fired power plants were to be captured and compressed to a liquid, its daily volume would equal the amount of oil Americans consume each day (about 20 million barrels). The study also concluded that a huge increase in investment in industrial-scale demonstration plants would be required now even to know in 10 or 15 years if the technology can work at a meaningful scale. All of this underscores the basic fact that carbon capture and storage is going to be very expensive-if it is even possible to accomplish on the scale that is being proposed.
Yet there is a subtler but possibly even more decisive price tag for "clean coal": the energy cost. According to the most recent estimate (from Harvard University's Belfer Center (5), at least 30 percent of the energy produced by burning coal will be needed to run the system for capturing, compressing, pumping, and burying CO2. Therefore any efficiency benefit from gasifying coal at IGCC power plants would be canceled out.
But already the average quality of coal being mined is declining-that is, we get less energy for each ton of coal burned today than we did ten years ago. This is a natural consequence of the "low-hanging-fruit" principle of resource extraction, in which we tend to consume the highest-quality, most easily accessed resources first.
So as time goes on, the US will need to burn more coal, while the coal itself will be more scarce and costly. And the technology used will be far more expensive and complex, both to build and to operate, than the system of power plants we have today. Taken together, these factors read like a recipe for cost overruns and spiraling electricity rates.
That doesn't sound good. Wait... did he just say "spiraling electricity rates?" You mean, you and me and me and you are the ones who are going to be paying higher rates if this coal carbon-capture-storage stuff doesn't work out quite right?
Imagine a scenario in which the US goes ahead with the attempt to develop "clean coal" technologies. During the coming decade tens of billions of dollars (mostly from government) would likely need to be invested in research and the construction of demonstration projects. By 2020, the price of coal will already have begun to rise, as supply problems multiply, yet "clean coal" technology won't be ready to deploy widely (the most ambitious proposals don't see that happening until after 2025). Even if renewable energy doesn't get cheaper due to technological advances (and most analysts assume it will), at some point along this timeline the "clean coal" bandwagon will almost certainly grind to a stop because it is simply too expensive to keep going.
That's a rather ugly and all too plausible scenario. West Virginia Sen. Jay Rockefeller insists "that efforts to address greenhouse gas emissions give our economy and our industries the time that's needed to develop and implement these new technologies."
If Rockefeller is right that CCS needs decades and these studies are right that we're fast running out of coal, then we're talking about one massively expensive boondoogle in "clean coal" that will do nothing to clean up our atmosphere, do nothing to secure our economic future, and do nothing to prepare us for a post-carbon future.
I don't agree with the premise that it is okay to waste billions of dollars just to provide political cover to win a vote for energy and climate change legislation. Those Senators and Representatives who say that "cleaner coal" technology is essential to win their vote need to prove how it could ever be an economically viable option.
Good afternoon, Progressive WVABlue readers. This is your afternoon open thread to discuss all things Hill-related. Use this thread to praise or bash Congresscritters, share a juicy tip, ask questions, offer critiques and suggestions, or post manifestos.
This is the most important news of the day... okay, maybe only some of it. So if you disagree, go watch CSPAN.
As always, this is a crosspost from Congress Matters.
The taller of our two senators was seen hanging around with a girl from Maine.
If you don't like this come to Drinking Liberally Friday, 11 DEC, 8:00PM, Peking Restaurant, Martinsburg, WV, and tell me to my face!
Casual Wednesday will return at its regular scheduled time. I promise.
To paraphrase a catch phrase from a famous wrestler, "Can you smelllllllalalala what the Jay Rock is cooking?"
Senator Rockefeller goes upside the head of Senator Conrad with some serious smack:
"I'm really very tired of hearing about that from him," an exasperated Rockefeller told reporters. "And it's always about North Dakota, and it's never about any other part of the country. And I thought, you know, that's what we're trying to do--we're trying to do the best thing for the country as a whole."
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