Today, President Obama took questions from the House Republican Caucus, including one from Congresswoman Shelly Moore Capito (WV-02) about coal jobs in West Virginia. The exchange begins around minute 19.

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Unofficial Transcript:

CONGRESSWOMAN CAPITO: Thank you, Mr. President, for joining us here today. As you said in the State of the Union address on Wednesday, jobs and the economy are number one. And I think everyone in this room, certainly I, agree with you on that.

I represent the state of West Virginia. We’re resource-rich. We have a lot of coal and a lot of natural gas. But our — my miners and the folks who are working and those who are unemployed are very concerned about some of your policies in these areas: cap and trade, an aggressive EPA, and the looming prospect of higher taxes. In our minds, these are job-killing policies. So I’m asking you if you would be willing to re-look at some of these policies, with a high unemployment and the unsure economy that we have now, to assure West Virginians that you’re listening.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Look, I listen all the time, including to your governor, who’s somebody who I enjoyed working with a lot before the campaign and now that I’m President. And I know that West Virginia struggles with unemployment, and I know how important coal is to West Virginia and a lot of the natural resources there. That’s part of the reason why I’ve said that we need a comprehensive energy policy that sets us up for a long-term future.

For example, nobody has been a bigger promoter of clean coal technology than I am. Testament to that, I ended up being in a whole bunch of advertisements that you guys saw all the time about investing in ways for us to burn coal more cleanly.

I’ve said that I’m a promoter of nuclear energy, something that I think over the last three decades has been subject to a lot of partisan wrangling and ideological wrangling. I don’t think it makes sense. I think that that has to be part of our energy mix. I’ve said that I am supportive — and I said this two nights ago at the State of the Union — that I am in favor of increased production.

So if you look at the ideas that this caucus has, again with respect to energy, I’m for a lot of what you said you are for.

The one thing that I’ve also said, though, and here we have a serious disagreement and my hope is we can work through these disagreements — there’s going to be an effort on the Senate side to do so on a bipartisan basis — is that we have to plan for the future.

And the future is that clean energy — cleaner forms of energy are going to be increasingly important, because even if folks are still skeptical in some cases about climate change in our politics and in Congress, the world is not skeptical about it. If we’re going to be after some of these big markets, they’re going to be looking to see, is the United States the one that’s developing clean coal technology? Is the United States developing our natural gas resources in the most effective way? Is the United States the one that is going to lead in electric cars? Because if we’re not leading, those other countries are going to be leading.

So what I want to do is work with West Virginia to figure out how we can seize that future. But to do that, that means there’s going to have to be some transition. We can’t operate the coal industry in the United States as if we’re still in the 1920s or the 1930s or the 1950s. We’ve got to be thinking what does that industry look like in the next hundred years. And it’s going to be different. And that means there’s going to be some transition. And that’s where I think a well-thought-through policy of incentivizing the new while recognizing that there’s going to be a transition process — and we’re not just suddenly putting the old out of business right away — that has to be something that both Republicans and Democrats should be able to embrace.

A much publicized tree-sit at the Bee Tree mine on Coal River Mountain has come to an end after nine days. Eric Blevins, 28, and Amber Nitchman, 19, descended from their trees this morning citing concerns from cold temperatures. Read the full press release by Climate Ground Zero.

Photo by Climate Ground Zero

Representatives from Climate Ground Zero met with West Virignia Governor Manchin today to discuss the harassment of two tree sitters who have halted blasting on Coal River Mountain since last Wednesday.

Eric Blevins, 28, and Amber Nitchman, 19, have occupied trees in the Bee Tree strip mine for the past eight days. The two protestors have been constantly bombarded with air horns, bright lights, and threats from Massey Energy security officials.

A third tree sitter descended and was arrested on day five of the protest.

The meeting follows a statement by Manchin that called for a cease to violence in the coalfields on both sides of the coal debate.

According to CGZ website, the meeting resulted in a temporary moratorium on the use of air horns and flood lights, but the sitters are concerned about other, possibly more dangerous, forms of harassment.

Read the full Climate Ground Zero press release.

On Thursday, I was greeted with this headline by Pam Kasey of the WV State Journal in my inbox:

“North-Central W.Va. is Ground Zero for Surface Mine Coal Ash”

The topic of the story in a nutshell is this:

“Mine operators are spreading serious amounts of coal combustion waste in W.Va. before the EPA declares it to be a hazardous material.”

Thanks to investigative research and testing following the TVA coal ash disaster in Harriman, TN., a year ago, it is now common knowledge that coal fly ash (also known as coal combustion waste, or CCW) contains numerous toxic metals such as selenium, mercury and lead, and according to the National Academy of Sciences, “can potentially be harmful to human health or the environment.”

Following a Senate investigation last summer into the properties of coal ash, committee chairperson Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) forced Homeland Security to release a list of the most toxic coal ash ponds in the country and is calling for stronger regulations on coal fly ash.

According to Kasey’s article, in the absence of federal regulation states handle the disposal of coal ash differently.

West Virginia, for instance, allows coal ash to be dumped directly into landfills or recycled into building materials such as concrete or drywall.

The state also has “by far the highest concentration of CCW mine placement in the country,” with “80 or 90 mine dumps” in just three counties.

Also according to Kasey, “A hazardous designation from the EPA would trigger the development of a federal disposal standard,” which means the mine operators and coal fired power plants could not simply dispose of coal ash in the traditional ways, but would have to handle the material as a hazardous waste.

Coal industry leaders complain that this would increase company costs, thereby increasing the price of electricity for consumers in West Virginia. At least one environmental advocate, Jeff Stant from the Environmental Integrity Project, believes that increased regulations on CCW will only mean a decrease in the use of that method of coal processing.

Read the full article at the WV State Journal.

An often pointed but unfailingly polite debate Thursday demonstrated a wide gulf between environmental and coal industry positions on Appalachia’s environmental woes.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., president of the Waterkeeper Alliance, challenged coal baron Don Blankenship to be honest about the coal industry’s environmental record, especially mountaintop removal mining.

“This is the worst environmental crime that has ever happened in our history,” Kennedy said, advocating an end to MTR and a gradual shift to renewable energy sources. “We all have a moral obligation to stop this from happening.”

Blankenship, chairman of Massey Energy Company, said the issue was one of industry competitiveness in the face of “environmental extremism.”

Blankenship also challenged Kennedy on the cost of renewable energy, asking why more was not being developed. “If windmills are the thing to do, it will happen naturally.”

Wind is cheaper than coal power, Kennedy responded. “I’m stunned that Mr Blankenship doesn’t know that this is going on.”

The debate, a Forum on the Future of Energy, was sponsored by the University of Charleston in Charleston, WV on Thursday evening, Jan. 21.

Although the debate developed little common ground, its civil tone contrasted with the rancor of hearings and other public events in recent years.

“Its sadly rare in our society to have a serious conversation between people with opposing opinions on a sensitive issue,” said debate moderator Edwin Welch, President of the University of Charleston WV.

At one point, Blankenship was asked if there were points of agreement between himself and Kennedy.

Blankenship: “We have some agreement on the fact that the world has to be part of the solution, not just the United States, and that we have to have a competitive industry if we are going to compete in a free world… Mr. Kennedy and Mr. Gore and all these other people who espouse this environmental stuff are basically mistaken as opposed to evil, because the bottom line is that if we don’t agree that homeland security, good use of our energy, low cost electricity for our houses, low cost gas for our industry, jobs, good households, high quality of life are the objective … If we don’t agree on that, then we are fundamentally on different pages.”

Kennedy said there were a few points of agreement. “I agree with a lot of Don’s rhetoric,” Kennedy said, “but I think there is a big gap between his rhetoric and what I see happening on the ground in these communities.” Kennedy also that they agreed on opposition to free trade and that “geological carbon sequestration is a joke.”

“That’s true,” Blankenship said, referring to carbon sequestration as a joke.

Kennedy and Blankenship sharply disputed topics such as: :

• Economic impacts and benefits of coal mining for Appalachia;

Kennedy: You look at the way people are living in this state. The Hendryx study shows that the closer you live to a coal mine, the sicker you are.”

Blankenship: This industry is what made this country great. If we forget that we’re going to have to learn to speak Chinese.

• Enforcement of environmental laws;

Kennedy: In a true free market system, the price of a product would reflect all of its costs. A producer like Mr Blankenship would have to pay all of the costs of his product before he gets it to market, instead of forcing you and I and my children to pay through bad health by externalizing those costs.

Blankenship: Unfortunately the laws are so difficult and the lawsuits so common and the cost of doing business is so high … To force the coal business out of West Virginia or surface mining would be a huge mistake for household budgets, for industry and for homeland security.

• Massey Energy company’s environmental record;

Kennedy: Just this last year, Massey had 12,900 (water quality) violations — A greater concentration than even before the $20 million fine (of 2008).

Blankenship: There is no country that mines coal more safely or more envirionmentally consciously than this country, and no company that does better at that than Massey.

• The cost and benefits of renewable energy;

Kennedy: The mining industry makes a few people rich by making everyone else poor, whereas the wind industry distributes wealth and the benefits of that industry more evenly.

Blankenship: Solar energy, it works well in the daytime, but it gets cold at night. Solar… and windmill parts will be made overseas…

Kennedy and Blankenship avoided a pitched debate over climate change, with Blankenship noting that he thought it was a “hoax” and Kennedy saying that the “science is settled.” However, Blankenship said there was a practical reason for his position on climate change. “If you look at 6.5 billion tons of coal in the world to raise their quality of life its not going to be possible to change the temperature of the earth by limiting the industry in this country and taking people’s jobs away.”

Kennedy also described the biodiversity being lost through Mountaintop Removal Mining:

Kennedy: During the Pleistocene ice age, 20,000 years ago, when there were 2 and a half miles of ice above the place where I live in NY, the rest of the country became a tundra, and all the trees disappeared except for one tiny refuge in the mountains of Kentucky and West Virginia. After the ice withdrew 12,000 years ago, all of North America was reseeded from those seed stocks. And that’s why the mountains of Appalachia are so important. They are the most biologically abundant temperate forests on the planet. A typical forest, all over the world, has three dominant species of trees. Appalachia has 80.

There were also moments of levity in the debate. At one point, Blankenship said he was glad Kennedy didn’t blame him for the ice age 20,000 years ago. And moderator Edwin Welch noted at the end of the debate that he didn’t think there would be a need for any “altar calls” for the converted.

In his summary statement, Kennedy said:

Kennedy: Don says we have to choose between environmental protection on the one hand and economic prosperity on the other. I say that’s a false choice… Good environmental policy is identical to good economic policy. We want to measure or economy … based upon on how it produces jobs, and the dignity of our jobs, over the generations, over the long term, and how it preserves the value of the assets of our community. If on the other hand we want to do what Don himself and his company have been urging us to do, which is to treat the planet as if it were a business in liquidation, convert all of our natural resources to cash as quickly as possible, have a few years of pollution based prosperity, we can generate an instantaneous cash flow and the illusion of a prosperous economy, but our children are going to pay for our joy ride, and they are going to pay for it with denuded landscapes and poor health and huge cleanup costs that are going to amplify over time.

Environmental injury, particularly of the kind that is happening today in West Virginia, is deficit spending. It’s a way of loading the costs of our generation’s prosperity onto the backs of our children…. An investment in our environment is (not) a diminishment of our nation’s wealth. Its an investment in infrastructure, like telecommunications or highways.

What I would say to the coal industry is go underground, employ lots of people, and do this safely as West Virginia makes a transition to a new energy future and to the prosperity that that’s going to bring this state.

Photos by Jamie Goodman, Appalachian Voice

Stephen Colbert interviewed University of Maryland scientist Dr Margaret Palmer on his show last night. Dr. Palmer was the lead author of the bombshell mountaintop removal study published in the “Science” Journal last week.

CLICK HERE to watch the interview.

Our friend Jeff Biggers has the clip and a great write-up over at Huffington Post. Be sure to pre-oder Jeff’s upcoming book, Reckoning at Eagle Creek.

Thanks to Joseph E. Lowery of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, we are reminded today, on this day celebrating the life and mission of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., that he would have fought against ALL injustices toward minorities, including the construction of coal-fired power plants in the poor minority communities across the south.

Lowery writes: “We are all grimly aware that inequality and discrimination remain potent in all walks of life, from job pay to matters of common decency. But too many are unaware of the injustice placed on low-income communities and people of color in rural areas.”

Here are other excerpts from Lowery’s full article:

“‘When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, militarism and economic exploitation are incapable of being conquered,’ King preached in a 1967 sermon in Atlanta.”

“Georgia doesn’t need to be the last irresponsible place on earth choosing coal. As Genesis reminds us, we must all rise to the challenge of thoughtful stewardship of what has been entrusted to us, to care for ‘the fish of the sea … the birds of the air … the cattle, and all creatures upon earth.’”

Here are two articles about the recent adoption of “non-mandatory” mandatory changes to Kentucky surface mine regulations.

We’ll believe this changes surface mining practices when we see it!

http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20100107/GREEN/1070356/1008/NEWS01/Kentucky+adopts+tougher+surface-mining+guidelines
Kentucky has issued tougher guidelines for surface coal mines that officials say will protect streams and lead to faster and better reclamation of hillsides and mountains.
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The guidelines, hammered out over the past year by federal and state regulatory officials, environmentalists and coal-industry representatives, call on coal operators to place more “spoil” material disrupted by mining — such as dirt and rock — back on the mine sites, instead of dumping it into valleys and stream beds. They are already in effect.

Though the guidelines aren’t mandatory, mine operators are expected to follow them because the state and federal agencies that issue permits for surface mining are part of the agreement and will base their permit decisions on it, said Linda Potter a spokeswoman for the state Department of Natural Resources.

….

http://www.kentucky.com/latest_news/story/1086985.html

The state is encouraging coal companies to use the new guidelines, but it’s not mandatory. However, federal agencies that have authority over some aspects of permit applications are requiring the use of the new practices, so as a practical matter, coal companies will use them, FitzGerald said.

And here is the response from Kentuckians for the Commonwealth:

http://www.kftc.org/blog/archive/2010/01/08/fill-minimization-will-it-happen

There is an important new protocol now in place for lessening the amount of toxic mining wastes dumped into streams. If enforced, it could help reduce significantly the destruction of our waterways. That is a good thing,

Titled the “fill placement optimization process” the document establishes a protocol (it reads largely like an engineering paper) for determining the amount of mining waste and where it should end up — first on the site being mined, then on adjacent abandoned mines and possibly in upper valley elevations (above stream level). It potentially diverts mining wastes from streams but does not ban dumping into streams. Basically, it establishes a possible protocol for enforcing existing law.

Download the Fill Placement Minimization Process document.

Download the state’s Reclamation Advisory Memorandum.

That’s the rub: state officials could (and should!) have been enforcing these laws all along had they chosen to do so. And the industry could have been obeying these laws. Instead, state officials have routinely granted waivers of the stream buffer zone (165 waivers out of a total of 251 new permits issued in 2005 and 2006) and reclamation laws. There is no evidence that they will not continue to do so, and this “new” policy — which the state is “encouraging” coal companies to follow — means nothing if the state and federal agencies are not going to require it. There are still plenty of loopholes.

That’s why the Stream Saver Bill and the Clean Water Protection Act are still needed. Coal companies should be prevented by law from filling our streams with their toxic wastes, not just “encouraged” to do so.

And given the Science journal study cited in our January 7 blog post, an outright prohibition of mountaintop removal and valley fills is the only real guarantee that our streams (and land and forests and people) will be protected and preserved.

We applaud the efforts of Tom FitzGerald and the Kentucky Resources Council to move the enforcement agencies a step closer to real enforcement of the law. Now it is up to enforcement officials to prove there will be action behind these words. Kentucky Resources Council to move the enforcement agencies a step closer to real enforcement of the law. Now it is up to enforcement officials to prove there will be action behind these words.

Mountaintop removal coal mine in Floyd or Magoffin County Kentucky by Kentuckians For The Commonwealth, on Flickr

This just in from the the great clean water advocates:

We are excited to announce that the Forum on the Future of Energy, where Waterkeeper Alliance President Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. will debate Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship, will be an online, interactive event.

Find out the latest news about the January 21, 2010 event and how you can participate by following us on Twitter and The Dirty Lie fan page on Facebook.

The University of Charleston will also be taking questions for the debaters in advance of the event – you can submit your questions to the University.

Thank you for your continued support of Waterkeeper Alliance and The Dirty Lie.

Sincerely,

Scott Edwards
Director of Advocacy
Waterkeeper Alliance

This just in from the Alliance for Appalachia Blog:

The Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement (OSMRE) is charged with enforcing the law on mountaintop removal. Unfortunately, decades of rollbacks and giving in to coal industry corruption have left coalfield communities virtually undefended. Exceptions to the surface mine law have become the rule, and problems with dust, blasting, toxic water and giant wastelands remaining unreclaimed are impacting the lives of thousands across the coalfields.

The OSMRE is asking for advice on how to enforce the law – and we need you to offer it. (link to website) Comments are due by January 19th – please click here to send in sample comments or offer your own. Many of you have had personal experiences with the OSMRE – and we encourage you to write about them.

When the OSMRE doesn’t hear from citizens, they assume you have nothing to say – please let them know we are paying attention and we expect the laws to be enforced.

Thanks for your help!