New Mining Law

[MapleGap]

Obama probably put a dagger in the mining industry here in southwest virginia today with his signing of a new mountain top removal mining law. Dont know for sure the bottom line, but coal is on its way out now, thank you Mr. Prez for the future layoffs. All together now, yeah for the democrats. For all that voted for him, dont gripe when you get your pink slip.

[simple man]

Obama probably put a dagger in the mining industry here in southwest virginia today with his signing of a new mountain top removal mining law. Dont know for sure the bottom line, but coal is on its way out now, thank you Mr. Prez for the future layoffs. All together now, yeah for the democrats. For all that voted for him, dont gripe when you get your pink slip.

Only someone that has no idea of mountain top removal, would support it. It is a lot like the "shoot and shove" of the late 60s and early 70s. Only the fact we had a jackass for president before allowed this, this area qualifies as one of the top 10 most polluted sites in the nation, only because of the choking of streams from this one type of mining. You can mine without mountain top removal.

[CoeburnCane]

Obama mining plan draws criticism from both sides

Charleston Gazette - June 11, 2009

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Obama administration officials on Thursday outlined their plans to try to reduce environmental damage from mountaintop removal, but stopped short of actions coal industry critics say are needed to curb destruction of Appalachian hills, forests and streams.


Federal regulators said they planned to abandon a streamlined permitting process for valley fills that bury streams, toughen ongoing reviews of a permit application backlog, and examine long-term changes to policies to find ways to continue large-scale strip mining without doing as much damage.


"This administration is taking unprecedented steps to reduce the environmental effects of mountaintop coal mining," said Nancy Sutley, chairwoman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality.


The White House and three different agencies announced the new efforts amid continued political pressure from citizen groups who want mountaintop removal stopped, and mine operators -- joined by coalfield politicians and the United Mine Workers -- who oppose moves that would tighten regulations or delay permit approvals.


But the Obama proposals did not please critics from either side.


Coal industry officials said the initiative creates more uncertainty about the hoops companies must jump through to open new mines, while environmental groups objected that more concrete steps were not taken to immediately slow the destructive mining practice.


"Mountains are being blown up today. Streams are being buried today. And the administration needs to move beyond rhetoric to real action," said Appalachian Center for the Economy and the Environment director Joe Lovett, one of a handful of lawyers who have been fighting mountaintop removal in court for a decade.


UMW President Cecil Roberts complained that environmental regulators had not consulted him when they were drawing up their plans, and threatened to oppose Obama's proposals if they appeared to put union miners' jobs at risk.


"I want to be clear: As events unfold over the next months and in the longer term, the UMWA will continue to fight for our members' jobs, their livelihoods and a secure future for their families," Roberts said in a prepared statement. "And we will do so without regard to who we have to fight with."


Coal industry officials responded that the Obama proposals for some short-term changes in permit review policies, coupled with medium- and long-range potential regulatory changes, do little to tell mine operators what tests they'll need to obtain new permits.


"I think they've added to the uncertainty," said Carol Raulston, spokeswoman for the National Mining Association. "When you have a moving target that is not clearly defined, I think that only adds to the uncertainty."


Raulston said her group also disagrees with the Obama administration's general conclusion that current mining enforcement has "failed to protect our communities, water, and wildlife in Appalachia."

"I think that is a very subjective and broad statement that we would disagree with," Raulston said.


Industry officials credit mountaintop removal with producing nearly 130 million tons of coal a year in West Virginia, Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee, and with providing 14,000 jobs.


But government studies have found that mountaintop removal has buried hundreds of miles of streams across the region, and that the practice is damaging downstream water quality, causing serious forest fragmentation, and, among other impacts, contributing to flooding.


"We're talking many, many pounds of debris, burying many, many miles of streams and the connection between that and water quality is in many cases fairly apparent and easily demonstrated," said Bob Sussman, a senior policy adviser for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. "So we think we are concerned with environmental impacts that are real, that are serious, and are not simply theoretical."


In the short-term, EPA said it plans to strengthen its review of Clean Water Act permits for mining that are currently handled by various state regulatory authorities. And as a long-range objective, EPA said it would consider "revisions to how surface coal mining activities are evaluated, authorized and regulated" under that law.


But administration officials conceded that there are many questions yet to be answered about where mountaintop removal regulation is headed.


For example, Interior Department officials said they hoped to convince a federal court to throw out Bush administration changes to the stream "buffer zone" rule, a move they had already announced more than a month ago. But on Thursday, they added that they have not yet decided whether in reverting to a 1983 version of the rule they will apply that rule to the footprint of valley fills -- a move that, if adopted, would ban those fills in perennial and intermittent streams.


"The guidance is still being developed," said Peter Mali, spokesman for Interior's Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement. "That's where we are. It's unclear what the guidance will and will not address."


Also, a key part of the Obama plan is to halt the use of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers streamlined Clean Water Act permitting review process.


But U.S. District Judge Joseph R. Goodwin has already thrown out that process, at least in Southern West Virginia, and -- in contrast to Thursday's announcement -- the Obama Justice Department earlier this week filed a formal notice that it plans to appeal Goodwin's ruling.


Sutley called the appeal notice a "procedural filing," and said there have been "no policy decisions made with respect to that case."

[CoeburnCane]

Sounds like to me that they're not shutting down the mines or handing out pink slips. It's going to make things harder for sure on surface mining--no arguing that, but the companies that find a way to comply with these more stringent laws will end up flourishing. The ones in a good cash position will be able to meet the regs, and the ones that are not in a good cash position (normally due to shoddy practices/sloppy planning) are going to have to figure something else out. That's part of capitalism--those who plan well and are smart with how they spend will flourish--those that aren't, won't.

I hope that once the new regulations come out that it will be more along the lines of making smarter plans about mountaintop removal as opposed to doing away with it altogether. Those plans will likely cost companies a few extra dollars, but if they can still mine it and get some kind of monetary concession back in return for following the regulations and not hurting the natural watershed...that would be ideal, and that honestly (to me) should be the plan. BUT--we don't know all the details of the plan yet, so we can't jump to a massive conclusion and say this is the end of the coal industry.

Keep in mind that mountaintop removal legislation does NOTHING to deep mining as well. So, coal mining is not going to go away. To be honest, some tougher regs may help balance the market by cutting production down to meet the lower demands. Some mines have had week-long or longer shutdowns so far in 2009, just because the steam & met demand markets have went down along with the economy, and sales values have thusly went down. It does no good to mine the coal if you can't turn around and sell it at a profit.

[R0cketer]

I guess my way of thinking on this is the following:

When they put emission control in cars, it would shut the car industry down
When they put labor laws in any business, it would shut it down

No business seems to ever want to find 'good solutions to fix problems' because at the end of the day, make no mistake, it will cost money and why would they want to waste money on things that they didn't have to previously.

We have all seen some of the mining around here that have reclaimed areas and did great work at it. We have also seen the ones who blow the top off the mountain with little concern for the effects, make their money, shut down that mine, re-open it 2 weeks later somewhere else with a different name and do the same thing again and again.

It always was told to me that if someone made both sides in an issue mad, they probably did good because then neither side got everything they wanted.

[simple man]

Mountain top removal sucks, the valley fill is the worst part of the deal. If we can't live from the other 250 years supply of coal, I'll sign up on welfare now. Some companies won't comply with the laws and change legal hands every couple of years to cover their butts so the folks that stay in the biz wind up paying into funds to cover their outlaw ways. The laws covered this once before and were changed. Alpha has merged and grown and changed, but not ducked out on anything they have mined. I wish all coal companies had this style of business.

[CoeburnCane]

Alpha has merged and grown and changed, but not ducked out on anything they have mined.

Thanks for noticing...

[simple man]

Thanks for noticing...

I just call them as I see them.