RockingChair

Front Porch Blog

Updates from Appalachia

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North Carolina’s reckless approach to the Clean Power Plan: Part 2

The deadline for comment on North Carolina’s Clean Power Plan is just two days away and you may be wondering — why is providing input so important? It’s simple, because the Plan will will chart our state’s role in becoming a clean power state and will either lift citizens away from the contamination and impacts of fossil fuel use, or will commit us to more of the same destructive power sources.

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North Carolina’s reckless approach to the Clean Power Plan: Part 1

North Carolina’s elected leaders and agency officials, with little say from the citizens they represent, have placed us on a reckless course in regard to our future energy mix and our ability as a state to determine that future. But together we can change that.

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Coal, Congress and the art of lying

It’s amazing how much work goes into stretching the truth. It’s even more amazing when media outlets and political leaders latch onto that “truth” and peddle it without scrutiny. A recent and relevant example: an economic impact analysis of the Stream Protection Rule, commissioned by the National Mining Association.

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Bleak outlook for coal in 2016

After the dismal year coal had in 2015, more hard times for the industry are ahead. Nowhere is the struggle more real than in Central Appalachia. A new white paper from Downstream Strategies tells the story of Appalachian coal over the past few decades in five simple charts.

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Coal’s death knell in Kentucky

The final months of 2015 may prove to be a historic moment for Kentucky’s politics and the state’s struggling coal industry. But it remains to be seen how the industry will maintain its political power in the Bluegrass State.

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