Tag Archives for jobs
Clean coal has hit a speedbump, but it remains essential
By William F. Shughart II
Washington Examiner
The Kemper County, Miss., power plant, once heralded as the future of clean coal, has become the poster child for its struggles.
Over-budget and mired in technical problems, the Southern Company, Kemper’s builder, recently announced that it’s giving up on the plant’s advanced coal-gasification systems. Instead, the plant will be powered solely by natural gas.
Renewable energy advocates and climate hawks had been expecting the announcement for months and reacted with predictable derision and high-fiving. But their gloating is foolish.
Whitewashing the Impact of Regulations on Coal
By Dan Byers
US Chamber of Commerce
The War on Coal is well and truly over, but a peculiar debate over its impact lingers on. Revisionist history is central to this debate, with some folks now suggesting that the coal industry was never in a two-front struggle against both a regulatory onslaught and cheap natural gas. Instead, they argue, it was a one-front war against natural gas all along. President Obama may have marshalled his regulatory agencies for battle, but who knew they were firing blanks?
Cheney bill on federal coal leasing goes before House
Heather Richards
Star Tribune
Those companies have since restructured, wiping away billions in debt in the process. And the overstock of coal has largely burned down.
Wyoming companies, energy experts and environmentalists agree that a new normal has set in for coal in Wyoming, where companies are operating at lower costs and producing less coal with fewer miners. It is a time for tightening belts and operating efficiently, not expanding.
Coal is one of America’s Greatest National Treasures
By Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY)
Wyoming is America’s largest coal producing state, mining close to 40 percent of the coal consumed by our nation every year. Common estimates give Wyoming close to 145 billion tons of recoverable coal and 1.4 trillion tons in total coal reserves. This coal is a national treasure.
Senior policy adviser tells coal sector EPA is here to help
A coal sector that has spent much of the past eight years criticizing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under the Obama administration welcomed an official with the Trump administration at an industry event May 4.
EPA Senior Policy Adviser Mandy Gunasekara said she came to the Eastern Fuel Buyers conference, hosted at the Disney Yacht Club in Orlando, Fla., to answer “eight years of questions” and gather information to take back to Washington, D.C.
ACC Spring Coal Forum: ‘Optimism pervades U.S. Coal Industry Amid Fewer Regulations: Forum’
Platts – (March 8, 2017) Clearwater, FL — Optimism pervaded the coal industry Wednesday as it gathered at the American Coal Council’s Spring Coal Forum in Clearwater, Florida, as the early days of the Trump administration have brought regulatory relief for an industry struggling to regain its edge. Early signs of the Trump administration’s focus on energy-related regulations have been positive for the industry, including a bill signed last month that eliminated the Stream Protection Rule, as well as executive orders on other energy-related issues, said Michael Nasi, a partner with Jackson Walker, a Dallas-based environmental law firm. Doing nothing in terms of federal intervention would be a major change for the industry compared with the Obama administration, which issued 57 federal implement plans over eight years. The FIPs are typically reserved for extraordinary circumstances under the Clean Air Act, which attempted to give more control to the states. “If all the president does is to stop doing [regulations] like this, he’s going to do an amazing job,” Nasi said.
PRESIDENT TRUMP DELIVERS ON ANOTHER CAMPAIGN PROMISE
WASHINGTON, DC (March 28, 2017)– With the signing of an Executive Order, President Trump delivered on his pledge to help coal by lifting energy restrictions and canceling job-killing regulations. The remarks by President Trump and key members of his cabinet warmly acknowledged the contributions of our nation’s coal miners. They pledged to level the playing field and eliminate federal overreach.
President Trump called for an immediate re-evaluation of the “so-called” Clean Power Plan and a lifting of the ban on (federal) coal leasing.
Trump readies slew of new orders targeting EPA
By JOHN SICILIANO
Washington Examiner (2/21/17)
President Trump is planning to issue executive orders this week to begin rolling back the centerpiece of President Obama‘s climate change agenda with several other regulations.
Trump is expected to soon issue the orders targeting regulations put into place by the Environmental Protection Agency, including the Clean Power Plan, which directs states to cut greenhouse gas emissions from existing power plants.
The EPA climate plan was halted a year ago by the Supreme Court until the courts can rule on litigation by 28 state attorneys general, the coal industry and hundreds of individual companies and industry groups.
Scott Pruitt’s Back-to-Basics Agenda for the EPA
By KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL, NEW YORK — (Feb. 17, 2017)
Republican presidents tend to nominate one of two types of administrator to lead the Environmental Protection Agency. The first is the centrist—think Christie Todd Whitman (2001-03)—who might be equally at home in a Democratic administration. The other is the fierce conservative—think Anne Gorsuch (1981-83)—who views the agency in a hostile light.
Scott Pruitt, whom the Senate confirmed Friday, 52-46, doesn’t fit either mold. His focus is neither expanding nor reducing regulation. “There is no reason why EPA’s role should ebb or flow based on a particular administration, or a particular administrator,” he says. “Agencies exist to administer the law. Congress passes statutes, and those statutes are very clear on the job EPA has to do. We’re going to do that job.” You might call him an EPA originalist.
ACC Applauds Action on Stream Rule
WASHINGTON, DC (February 3, 2017)– The congressional action this week to strike down the “Stream Protection Rule” issued December 19, 2016 by the Department of the Interior’s Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement is a welcome step in the right direction for the federal government and for coal. The swift action recognizes the severe flaws in a regulation that would needlessly restrict access to our nation’s abundant coal reserves, increase mining costs, erode federal and state tax revenues, and result in the loss of high numbers of well-paying jobs.
