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Fw: Natural Gas Initiative
by Jim Sconyers 01 Jun '10

01 Jun '10

Jim Sconyers jim_scon(a)yahoo.com 304.698.9628 Remember: Mother Nature bats last. ----- Forwarded Message ---- From: Michael Brune <Michael.Brune(a)sierraclub.org> To: HQ-ANNOUNCEMENTS(a)LISTS.SIERRACLUB.ORG Sent: Tue, June 1, 2010 3:51:25 PM Subject: Natural Gas Initiative ***************************GlobalMessage********************************* THIS MESSAGE IS AN INFORMATIONAL MESSAGE BEING SENT TO ALL SIERRA CLUB STAFF, THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS, MEMBERS OF ALL ADVISORY COMMITTEES, COUNCIL EXCOM, AND MANY OTHER NATIONAL COMMITTEE LEADERS,CHAPTER CHAIRS, CHAPTER CONSERVATION CHAIRS, GROUP CHAIRS, AND CCL DELEGATES. ***PLEASE DO NOT REPLY *** TO SENDER OR FORWARD THIS MESSAGE TO LISTS WHO HAVE ALREADY RECEIVED THIS MESSAGE. *********************************************************************** From: Michael Brune June 1, 2010 To: Sierra Club Volunteers and Staff Re: Natural Gas Initiative Friends and Colleagues: In one of my first messages to you as the Sierra Club’s new executive director, I spelled out four matters I consider priorities for my first three months. Today I’d like to discuss our plans for addressing one of those priorities: the regulation of natural gas. The topic has come up often in my travels and it is important that we address it even as we focus so much attention on the disaster BP has created in the Gulf. As the recent natural gas boom changes the energy landscape, new production techniques raise environmental concerns about this fuel. Let me repeat now what I have been telling those of you who fear that your favorite landscapes and the communities you love may be at risk: The Sierra Club has your back. We will stand with you to ensure that natural gas extraction is effectively regulated and that the industry employs the safest and most environmentally sound techniques. We stand at a crossroads today. The time is coming when coal and oil will be the energy of the past. Over the past five years Sierra Club has led a nationwide effort with our chapters and local allies that prevented the construction of more than 125 coal-fired power plants. Just two weeks ago the Mississippi Chapter won a David-versus-Goliath battle to block Southern Company’s proposal to build a massive new coal plant. On the horizon are the predominance of new clean-energy projects and the country’s reliance on wind and solar. The only question is how long it will take (and what we’ll lose as many of our leaders dither). As the Sierra Club works hard to stop the worst of the worst, we have to fight equally hard to promote the best of the best, starting with energy efficiency and moving on to the range of renewables, from responsibly sited wind and solar projects to distributed generation in communities across the country. During the transition from old to new, we acknowledge that some fuels will remain in use, even though they should have no place in our long-term energy vision. Several years ago the Sierra Club, using its standard democratic processes and taking into account the best scientific evidence, acknowledged that natural gas will be part of the transition from far dirtier energy sources—particularly coal—to a clean-energy future (http://bit.ly/SCnaturalgaspolicy). This policy was born of the Club’s realization that the threat of climate disruption is severe and that we need an immediate solution to get off coal on a massive scale. A commitment to problem solving is one of our organization’s great strengths. The responsible use of natural gas will help the nation address the complex problem of climate change, but only if we do it right. We must be clear that energy efficiency, distributed solar and wind, and appropriately sited large-scale wind, solar and geothermal projects are true clean-energy solutions and should be at the front of the line for new energy investments. Indeed, it is a priority for the Club to build a package of grassroots campaigns so that we can more effectively build a movement and make dramatic progress at the local, state and federal levels to stabilize energy demand and create a larger share of the pie for clean energy. We must also wrestle with the environmental challenges raised by the use of natural gas. Modern natural gas production techniques can cause significant environmental damage, and the risks are multiplied by the increasing use of hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) technology that allows for recovery of gas from deep in shale formations. Expanded natural gas production without adequate regulation has led to serious problems, from fouled well water in Wyoming, to polluted rivers in the Northeast, to air-pollution in Texas. These problems are exacerbated by legal loopholes that exempt the industry from basic environmental laws, by outdated state regulations that do not fully control modern gas-production practices, and by the limited capacity of authorities to enforce those laws on the books. A volunteer-led task force has developed a policy calling for the strict regulation of natural gas fracturing (http://bit.ly/frackingpolicy). Among the types of drilling projects the Club opposes are those in which the contents of fracking fluids are not disclosed to the public or contain an unacceptable toxic risk, and those that fail to protect drinking and surface water or violate air-quality standards. To implement this policy, the Club recently formed the Hydraulic Fracture Implementation Task Force and the Hydrofracking Team on the Activist Network (http://bit.ly/activistnetworkgasfrack). The task force is developing model regulatory standards based on detailed best management practices, overseeing an effort to push for them in pilot states, and guiding the identification of areas that should be off-limits to natural gas production. It has already worked with chapters and coalition partners to submit extensive technical and legal comments on numerous state and federal regulatory proposals governing natural gas production. It has also joined with several groups to form a team of attorneys and experts to develop model regulations. The growing team will include engineering, hydrology and toxicology specialists and other technical experts. Grassroots advocacy for natural gas regulation is essential. That’s why we’re launching a natural gas campaign to coordinate hard-hitting efforts across the country to make sure that this industry is regulated and using best practices. Watch for upcoming opportunities to get involved. I applaud the excellent work our chapters and activists have already done, and I encourage those of you involved in these efforts to keep pushing for environmental safeguards. Doing sophisticated campaign work on efficiency and renewables is critical to our success. Getting it right on natural gas is also essential as we move toward a clean-energy future. The Sierra Club has experienced tremendous success in recent years in our efforts to reduce the carbon dioxide emissions that cause climate disruption. Securing major improvements in natural gas extraction practices and regulation is a top priority. I’m looking forward to working with you to get this crucial work done. I welcome your feedback and ideas. To let me know what you think please visit: www.sierraclub.org/ed/memos And next Monday, June 7, at 5 p.m. Pacific, I will host a call with all volunteers and staff to talk about our natural gas campaign and policies and answer questions (1 866-501-6174; Code 223-9223#). Onward, Michael Brune Executive Director Sierra Club 415-977-5662 Follow on Facebookand Twitter www.sierraclub.org - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - To unsubscribe from the HQ-ANNOUNCEMENTS list, send any message to: HQ-ANNOUNCEMENTS-signoff-request(a)LISTS.SIERRACLUB.ORG Check out our Listserv Lists support site for more information: http://www.sierraclub.org/lists/faq.asp

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Fw: NRDC on nuclear provisions in American Power Act
by Jim Sconyers 01 Jun '10

01 Jun '10

Jim Sconyers jim_scon(a)yahoo.com 304.698.9628 Remember: Mother Nature bats last. ----- Forwarded Message ---- From: dave o'leary <dave.oleary(a)MDSIERRA.ORG> To: CONS-SPST-GLOBALWARM-CHAIRS(a)LISTS.SIERRACLUB.ORG Sent: Tue, June 1, 2010 3:12:45 AM Subject: NRDC on nuclear provisions in American Power Act Here is write-up of many of the issues with the nuclear provisions in the Kerry-Lieberman climate bill. It is a little long, but that's only because there are so many opportunities for improvement in the bill in ways that strengthen our arguments for more emphasis on efficiency and renewables programs. http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/cpaine/packing_the_nuclear_pork_barre.html Those concerned about nuclear waste and taxpayer money waste can both find appalling aspects of the bill. Those who are interested in good government issues, or who are expressing outrage over lack of regulatory oversight in the BP gulf oil disaster should also read through this and take note of the proposals for further "streamlining" of the licensing process. One thing that is not mentioned in this summary is the relative job creation potential of energy efficiency spending vs. construction and operation of nuclear plants. I encourage you to read through this and find at least a couple of things that will resonate with your Senators, then call and suggest that they work to improve the bill - thanks - David O'Leary Sierra Club - Maryland Chapter - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - To unsubscribe from the CONS-SPST-GLOBALWARM-CHAIRS list, send any message to: CONS-SPST-GLOBALWARM-CHAIRS-signoff-request(a)LISTS.SIERRACLUB.ORG Check out our Listserv Lists support site for more information: http://www.sierraclub.org/lists/faq.asp

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Fw: You have been invited to Organizing the Team.
by Jim Sconyers 01 Jun '10

01 Jun '10

Jim Sconyers jim_scon(a)yahoo.com 304.698.9628 Remember: Mother Nature bats last. ----- Forwarded Message ---- From: Sierra Club Online Communities <community.manager(a)SIERRACLUB.ORG> To: CONS-CHAPTER-CONS-CHAIRS(a)LISTS.SIERRACLUB.ORG Sent: Tue, June 1, 2010 11:39:35 AM Subject: You have been invited to Organizing the Team. Sierra Club Online Communities Bob has invited you to Organizing the Team We need to recruit people who want to take direct action in response to the BP oil disaster. Message: This is our kickoff event. It starts now and everyone is a part of the event. Let's see how many people we can find who want to take action to repair or mitigate BP's injury to our ecosystem. Click here to view event details Note: Please do not reply to this message. This system message was sent from a notification-only email address. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - To unsubscribe from the CONS-CHAPTER-CONS-CHAIRS list, send any message to: CONS-CHAPTER-CONS-CHAIRS-signoff-request(a)LISTS.SIERRACLUB.ORG Check out our Listserv Lists support site for more information: http://www.sierraclub.org/lists/faq.asp

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FW: NYT #2 (Friedman -- Maila for President)
by James Kotcon 31 May '10

31 May '10

From:JClaussJr@aol.com [mailto:JClaussJr@aol.com] Sent: Sunday, May 30, 2010 1:58 PM To: csueclauss(a)aol.com Cc: rdelliott(a)socal.rr.com Subject: NYT #2 (Friedman -- Maila for President May 28, 2010 Malia for PresidentBy THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN ( http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/editorialsandoped/oped/columnists/tho… ) It took almost the entire press conference at the White House on Thursday for President Obama to find his voice in responding to the oil disaster in the gulf — and it is probably no accident that it seemed like the only unrehearsed moment. The president was trying to convey why he takes this problem so seriously, when he noted: “When I woke this morning and I’m shaving and Malia knocks on my bathroom door and she peeks in her head and she says, ‘Did you plug the hole yet, Daddy?’ Because I think everybody understands that when we are fouling the Earth like this, it has concrete implications — not just for this generation, but for future generations. I grew up in Hawaii where the ocean is sacred. And when you see birds flying around with oil all over their feathers and turtles dying, that doesn’t just speak to the immediate economic consequences of this; this speaks to how are we caring for this incredible bounty that we have. And so sometimes when I hear folks down in Louisiana expressing frustrations, I may not always think that their comments are fair. On the other hand, I probably think to myself, ‘These are folks who grew up fishing in these wetlands and seeing this as an integral part of who they are.’ And to see that messed up in this fashion would be infuriating.” And a child shall lead them. ... This oil leak is not President Obama’s fault. Stopping the spill is BP’s responsibility; it both caused it and it has the best access to the best technology to plug it. Of course, as the nation’s C.E.O., Mr. Obama has to oversee the cleanup, and he has been on top of that. His most important job, though, is one he has yet to take on: shaping the long-term public reaction to the spill so that we can use it to generate the political will to break our addiction to oil. In that job, the most important thing Mr. Obama can do is react to this spill as a child would — because it is precisely that simple gut reaction, repeated over and over, speech after speech, that could change our national conversation on energy. You see, right now our energy conversation is dominated by three voices. There are the “petro-determinists,” who never tire of telling us that we’ll be dependent on oil for a “long, long time.” That is true. The problem is, these same people have been telling us that ever since the first oil crisis in 1973, and their real objective in doing so is not to help us understand that breaking our oil addiction is difficult, but to make us think that it is impossible — so don’t bother. Then there are the “eco-pessimists,” who argue that it is probably already too late. We are toast. Unless we rewire human beings to want less growth — not only ourselves but the millions in China and India who aspire to live like us — the end is nigh. The eco-pessimists may be right, and they are certainly sincere, but they have little respect for the power of innovation, the power of six billion minds all trying to solve one problem. Finally, we have the “Obama realists.” These are the political pros who whisper to him every day that this is not the time to lay out a big new “Obama End to Oil Addiction Act.” The Democrats, they contend, are suffering from “legislative fatigue.” After casting a hard vote for health care, they don’t want to be asked to cast a supposedly hard vote for a price on carbon — the essential first step in getting off oil. And, they rightly add, the G.O.P. today is so cynical, so bought and paid for by Big Oil, that only a couple of Republican senators would have the courage and vision to vote for a price on carbon. So Democrats would be out there alone. The Obama realists make sure that the president is always careful to talk in vague terms about how he stands behind “Waxman-Markey” and “Kerry-Lieberman” — sterile Washington-speak for the House and Senate bills that attempt to put a small price on carbon. I am glad he is behind them; I just wish he were in front of them. I am glad the president passed health care for the nation. But healthy to do what? To go where? To grasp what dream? Answering those questions is the president’s great opportunity here, but he has to think like a kid. Kids get it. They ask: Why would we want to stay dependent on an energy source that could destroy so many birds, fish, beaches and ecosystems before the next generation has a chance to enjoy them? Why aren’t we doing more to create clean power and energy efficiency when so many others, even China, are doing so? And, Daddy, why can’t you even mention the words “carbon tax,” when the carbon we spill into the atmosphere every day is just as dangerous to our future as the crude oil that has been spilling into the gulf? That is what a child would want to know if he or she could vote. That is the well of aspiration for a game-change on energy that Mr. Obama can tap into. And he could even rip off BP for his moon shot motto: Let’s get America “Beyond Petroleum.” As you would say, Mr. President, this is your time, this is your moment. Seize it. A disaster is an inexcusable thing to waste.

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AEP to run 10 old coal units part-time due to economy
by Frank Young 27 May '10

27 May '10

This is kind of odd news. http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN2710347720100527?type=marketsNews AEP to run 10 old coal units part-time due economy * AEP to reduce costs by running units part-time * Units to remain available for peak summer/winter months * Units did not run much over past few years NEW YORK, May 27 (Reuters) - American Electric Power Co Inc (AEP.N) planned to run 10 small coal-fired power units on a part-time basis starting in June as the weak economy reduced demand and low natural gas prices have made the use of some coal units less profitable, a company spokesman said Thursday. The spokesman, Pat Hemlepp, said AEP, of Columbus, Ohio, would place the coal units, which are older, smaller and less efficient, in "extended start-up" status beginning June 1 and redeploy some employees. With the federal government looking to impose a cost on carbon emissions to combat global warming and environmental regulations becoming increasingly stringent year over year, several power companies, including Exelon Corp (EXC.N) and Progress Energy Inc (PGN.N), have already announced plans to retire some older, less efficient coal plants. Hemlepp said this was part of AEP's effort to reduce costs after the recession reduced consumer power demand and a decline in natural gas prices made gas plants less expensive than the older coal units in the company's Eastern footprint. In April, AEP said it would launch a companywide buyout program to cut its workforce by 1,000 to 2,000 jobs, or 5 percent to 10 percent, as the poor economy continued to squeeze power demand. [ID:nN15255252] Together the units, which Hemlepp said have not run much over the past few years, can generate close to 2,000 megawatts - only a small sliver of AEP's 38,000 MW generating capacity. One megawatt powers about 1,000 homes. AEP plans to make the old coal units available during the peak summer months of July and August when consumers crank up their air conditioners and January when they turn up their heating systems. During the other months, Hemlepp said the units would be available to run with about four days notice. The units include: Unit Size Year Town/County State Picway 5 100 MW 1955 Pickaway County OH Muskingum River 4 215 MW 1958 Beverly OH Clinch River 3 235 MW 1961 Carbo VA Tanners Creek 1 145 MW 1951 Lawrenceburg IN Tanners Creek 2 145 MW 1952 Lawrenceburg IN Glen Lyn 5 95 MW 1944 Glen Lyn VA Glen Lyn 6 240 MW 1957 Glen Lyn VA Philip Sporn 3 150 MW 1951 New Haven WV Philip Sporn 4 150 MW 1952 New Haven WV Philip Sporn 5 450 MW 1960 New Haven WV Hemlepp noted that some of the plants have larger, more efficient units that will remain available for service all year. (Reporting by Scott DiSavino) Check out the Valley Watch website at: http://valleywatch.net John Blair "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win." Mahatma Gandhi 800 Adams Avenue Evansville, IN 47713 812-464-5663 In accordance with title 17 U. S. Code, Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior general interest in receiving similar information for research and educational purposes. _______________________________________________ No New Coal Plants! (nonewcoalplants(a)energyjustice.net) Energy Justice Network http://www.energyjustice.net Un/Subscribe, change your settings or access the archives at: http://mail.energyjustice.net/mailman/listinfo/nonewcoalplants_energyjustic…

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Fw: Environmental Law Institute
by Jim Sconyers 24 May '10

24 May '10

Ash panel talk. Jim Sconyers jim_scon(a)yahoo.com 304.698.9628 Remember: Mother Nature bats last. ----- Forwarded Message ---- From: Sam Flenner <samf.environmentalintegrity(a)GMAIL.COM> To: COAL-COMBUSTION-WASTE(a)LISTS.SIERRACLUB.ORG Sent: Mon, May 24, 2010 9:33:05 AM Subject: Environmental Law Institute New EPA Coal Ash Rules: Understanding the Options WHEN: June 17, 2010, 12:00 PM to 2:00 PM (Speaking will begin promptly at 12:15 PM) WHERE: Environmental Law Institute 2000 L Street, NW, Suite 620 (Sixth Floor) Washington, DC 20036 Click here for directions. RSVP: To reserve, e-mail mcmurrin(a)eli.org. Please reserve by June 15. There is no charge for ELI members to attend or participate by teleconference, but you must RSVP. Non-members must pay $25, Students are $10. Non-members must download and return this form. Conference call information will be emailed out one business day prior to the event. On May 4, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced for comment the first-ever federal ruleto ensure the safe disposal and management of coal ash from coal-fired power plants. The rule requires protective controls and oversight at landfills and surface impoundments, and is intended to promote environmentally safe and desirable forms of recycling coal ash. The proposal suggests two approaches for addressing coal ash management risks under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA). One would classify coal ash as nonhazardous waste, which may help promote recycling and keep storage costs lower. The second approach would classify coal ash as hazardous waste, requiring measures to minimize health risks from heavy metals and other contaminants. The panel will discuss the background and features of the rule, possible benefits and drawbacks of each option, and the role of recycling. This is a brown-bag lunch event. Please check back later for confirmed faculty! -- Samuel E. Flenner III Outreach Associate Environmental Integrity Project samf.environmentalintegrity(a)gmail.com 317.352.2339 c-317.850.0436 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - To unsubscribe from the COAL-COMBUSTION-WASTE list, send any message to: COAL-COMBUSTION-WASTE-signoff-request(a)LISTS.SIERRACLUB.ORG Check out our Listserv Lists support site for more information: http://www.sierraclub.org/lists/faq.asp To view the Sierra Club List Terms & Conditions, see: http://www.sierraclub.org/lists/terms.asp

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Fw: Fwd: Do they know?
by Jim Sconyers 21 May '10

21 May '10

Jim Sconyers jim_scon(a)yahoo.com 304.698.9628 Remember: Mother Nature bats last. ----- Forwarded Message ---- From: Paul Wilson <pjgrunt(a)gmail.com> To: Melissa Boyer <uniquemo77(a)yahoo.com>; Tom Baughman <tbaughman(a)netscape.com>; grafforcongress(a)gmail.com; Jim Sconyers <jim_scon(a)yahoo.com> Sent: Fri, May 21, 2010 10:33:07 AM Subject: Fwd: Do they know? here's some info on Operation Free and the Truman Project. One organization Veterans Green Jobs has received a grant from Sierra Club. their link is www.veteransgreenjobs.org Operation Free has a postcard campaign targeting senators. You can get postcards from this guy Jonathan. best, paul ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Jonathan Murray, Operation Free <opfreeinfo(a)gmail.com> Date: Thu, May 20, 2010 at 11:47 AM Subject: Do they know? To: pjgrunt(a)gmail.com Paul, You know we could keep $100 million away from Iran every day by passing the American Power Act. You know that energy, climate, and national security are inextricably linked - and so do 79% of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans. But does your Senator know? Does your neighbor? We've got a way for you to make sure both know. Take real grassroots action and make sure they know. We've ordered thousands of petition postcards and we're ready to put some in the mail for you to share with your family, friends and neighbors. Here's how it works: We send you pre-stamped blank petition postcards, your friends fill them out and drop them in the mail, and we'll have a veteran deliver them to your Senator all at one time. Simple, right? If every one of our supporters requested 15 post cards, we could deliver an impressive stack to all 100 Senators. This is your chance to become part of the team. Request as many postcards as you want and we'll rush them to you immediately. 15, 30… maybe even 100! If you can get your friends, family, neighbors, and co-workers to fill them out, we'll send 'em. Are you ready to take that next step and become one of our most important local organizers? Things happen in Washington when Americans across the country step up and push back against business-as-usual and well-funded lobbyists. This is how we do it - with your help. Join the veterans who are taking a stand to protect our energy security and start helping today. Welcome to the Team, Jonathan Murray Click here to unsubscribe -- Paul Wilson Sierra Club 504 Jefferson Ave Charles Town, WV 25414-1130 Phone: 304-725-4360 Cell: 304-279-1361 "There is no forward until you have gone back" ~Buddha "In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous" ~ Aristotle

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Temporary Job Announcement: ARC Research Intern
by Frank Young 18 May '10

18 May '10

Summer Position Announcement: ARC Research Intern, Research and Planning Division Closing Date: June 1, 2010. The Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) is a regional economic development agency that represents a partnership of federal, state, and local governments. Established by an act of Congress in 1965, ARC is composed of the governors of the 13 Appalachian states and a federal co-chair, who is appointed by the president. Local participation is provided through multi-county local development districts. ARC funds economic development projects that address the four goals identified in the Commission's strategic plan: 1. Increase job opportunities and per capita income in Appalachia to reach parity with the nation. 2. Strengthen the capacity of the people of Appalachia to compete in the global economy. 3. Develop and improve Appalachia's infrastructure to make the Region economically competitive. 4. Build the Appalachian Development Highway System to reduce Appalachia's isolation. Each year ARC provides funding for several hundred projects in the Appalachian Region, in areas such as business development, education and job training, telecommunications, infrastructure, community development, housing, and transportation. These projects create thousands of new jobs; improve local water and sewer systems; increase educational opportunities; expand access to health care; assist local communities with strategic planning; and provide technical and managerial assistance to emerging businesses. The Research and Planning Division compiles and analyzes socioeconomic data for the Appalachian Region, creating technical maps and reports and supervising original research of key economic, demographic, and quality of life factors that affect economic development prospects in the region. Our data, maps, reports, and research studies are available at www.arc.gov/research. The Division is currently undertaking a project to improve the quality and efficiency of the performance evaluation and reporting process related to ARC-supported projects, with a long-term goal of enhancing the agency’s reporting capabilities to the federal government and the public. We are seeking a summer intern who is organized, detail-oriented, and highly proficient in Microsoft Excel to assist with this effort. The intern will review ARC projects and systematically assess their impact on quality of life measures for individuals, households, and communities throughout Appalachia. Applicants should be knowledgeable about data management and quality control issues. Background in economic development and the Appalachian region would be helpful. Familiarity with Microsoft Access is a big plus, and the ideal candidate would be able to create or support database-driven solutions and applications. The position is full-time, M-F 8:30-5:00, and will extend up to 12 weeks, beginning as soon as possible. The position is open to recent college graduates and graduate students. Pay is $16-20 per hour depending on qualifications. The position is located at our Washington DC office near Dupont Circle. How to Apply. Applicants should email a resume and a cover letter addressing the specific qualifications outlined above to Human Resources at: hr(a)arc.gov or fax your application to (202)884-7691. Closing Date: June 1, 2010. The Appalachian Regional Commission is an equal opportunity employer -- Janet Keating, Executive Director Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition P.O. Box 6753 Huntington, WV 25773-6753 304.522.0246 phone 304.522.4079 fax www.ohvec.org www.sludgesafety.org www.wvoter-owned.org

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Fw: Fwd: Conso Coal Taking Our Homes
by Jim Sconyers 17 May '10

17 May '10

Jim Sconyers jim_scon(a)yahoo.com 304.698.9628 Remember: Mother Nature bats last. ----- Forwarded Message ---- From: "pastdjlj(a)aol.com" <pastdjlj(a)aol.com> To: jim_scon(a)yahoo.com Sent: Mon, May 17, 2010 7:56:41 PM Subject: Fwd: Conso Coal Taking Our Homes -----Original Message----- From: pastdjlj(a)aol.com To: jim(a)aol.com; scon(a)yahoo.com Sent: Mon, May 17, 2010 7:53 pm Subject: Fwd: Conso Coal Taking Our Homes -----Original Message----- From: pastdjlj(a)aol.com To: jimscon(a)yahoo.com Sent: Mon, May 17, 2010 7:52 pm Subject: Fwd: Conso Coal Taking Our Homes -----Original Message----- From: pastdjlj(a)aol.com To: jim(a)aol.com; scon(a)yahoo.com Sent: Mon, May 17, 2010 7:49 pm Subject: Conso Coal Taking Our Homes Dear Sir, We are hearing that Consol Coal is planning to purchase our homes on Mozart Meadows to expand their gob pile that they reclaimed years ago. Apparently they need this expansion to go with the increased production from their shoemaker mine in Benwood WV. They have already destroyed much of the hilltop above Bogge Run and now they seem to be planning to run off all of us that live on the hilltop on the other side. We are hearing that not only are they looking at our lane but two other lanes as well. They seem to be only talking to individuals one on one and keeping everyone else in the dark. Does your organization have any information on this? Looking down on the old gob pile that now is a meadow and a home to wildlife it is hard to believe that it and our beautiful neighborhood could soon become an ugly gob pile and disgusting waste pond that swallowed up wildlife and family pets in the past. Any information would be helpful. Thank you, John M. Pastorius 30 Mozart Meadows Wheeling, WV 26003

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Fw: ALERT! Defend West Virginia's Waterways
by Jim Sconyers 17 May '10

17 May '10

Jim Sconyers jim_scon(a)yahoo.com 304.698.9628 Remember: Mother Nature bats last. ----- Forwarded Message ---- From: Chris Craig <ccraig(a)laurellodge.com> To: Regina Hendrix <regina1936(a)verizon.net>; Jim Sconyers <jim_scon(a)yahoo.com>; Paul Wilson <pjgrunt(a)gmail.com> Sent: Mon, May 17, 2010 1:20:43 PM Subject: FW: ALERT! Defend West Virginia's Waterways National Audubon Society This was the first I’d heard of this, though I’m probably behind the times. Have we taken any action on it? Chris Craig ________________________________ From:Audubon [mailto:audubonaction@audubon.org] Sent: Monday, May 17, 2010 11:23 AM To: ccraig(a)laurellodge.com Subject: ALERT! Defend West Virginia 's Waterways Trouble reading this e-mail? View it online. The Dunkard Creek Tragedy Need Never Happen Again Comments Needed to Protect our Streams and Creeks Dear Chris, Fish and mussels were wiped out by the golden algae bloom. Send a letter to the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection and demand clean water protections. Photo courtesy of Deborah Fulton In September 2009, disaster struck West Virginia . That’s when golden algae (Prymnesium parvum) struck Dunkard Creek, a stream which meanders along the West Virginia-Pennsylvania border roughly 90 miles south of Pittsburgh . A massive fish kill and complete kill of mussels resulted. The loss of food and habitat is also affecting birds and other wildlife. This was the first case of golden algae in the mideastern U.S. The algae, typically a marine organism, produces a toxin that kills gill-breathing organisms. State agencies which investigated the fish kill are in agreement that high Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) discharged from Consol coal mines, created the brackish environment which allowed the algae to thrive in what had been a freshwater stream. Please send an email to the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection (WVDEP) today. Let them know you care about West Virginia 's creeks and streams, and the fish, birds and other wildlife that depend on them. Tell them allowing companies to pollute our streams is unacceptable. Since the Dunkard Creek event, golden algae has been discovered in Whitely Creek in PA and several other streams in WV. Twenty streams and rivers in WV have golden-algae-friendly high TDS levels and the algae may potentially be carried to other streams by human activity and by wildlife. Eradication of golden algae is not possible, as the organism can lie dormant until conditions are once again favorable for growth. The only known means of control is to improve water quality by limiting algae-friendly TDS levels. WVDEP recently announced that they are considering establishment of a long overdue TDS standard for streams in West Virginia and are soliciting public comment. Please contact WVDEP now and ask them to implement water pollution control standards that will protect all our streams, and the fish, birds, wildlife — and communities — that depend upon a healthy environment. The West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection, in a series of extensions starting in 2002, allowed Consol to avoid compliance with in-stream limits on chloride levels required under the Clean Water Act — pollution that caused the disastrous collapse of Dunkard Creek. It could have been averted had the Clean Water Act standards been enforced. ________________________________ Do you know someone else who cares about protecting West Virginia 's waterways and the wildlife that depend on it? Help us to spread the word: Tell-a-friend! Trouble with the "Take Action" links in the message? Try cutting-and-pasting this link into your web browser: www.audubonaction.org/site/Advocacy?id=851 National Audubon Society Public Policy Program 1150 Connecticut Avenue NW, Suite 600 , Washington , DC 20036 (202) 861-2242 | audubonaction(a)audubon.org Change your contact information | Unsubscribe

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Fw: need fly ash samples
by Jim Sconyers 17 May '10

17 May '10

Jim Sconyers jim_scon(a)yahoo.com 304.698.9628 Remember: Mother Nature bats last. ----- Forwarded Message ---- From: Lisa Graves-Marcucci <lisagmarcucci(a)GMAIL.COM> To: COAL-COMBUSTION-WASTE(a)LISTS.SIERRACLUB.ORG Sent: Mon, May 17, 2010 10:14:28 AM Subject: need fly ash samples Hi all, I am working with a team of researchers at the University of Pittsburgh's Graduate School of Public Health. The research team is looking to obtain (5) fly ash samples from various sites throughout the country. If you have a fly ash sample - or are able to obtain one - please let me know and I will put you in touch with the research team. Many thanks, LGM -- Lisa Graves Marcucci Environmental Integrity Project PA Coordinator, Community Outreach 123 Oakwood Drive Jefferson Hills, PA 15025 412-655-0261 412-897-0569 (cell) lisagmarcucci(a)gmail.com - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - To unsubscribe from the COAL-COMBUSTION-WASTE list, send any message to: COAL-COMBUSTION-WASTE-signoff-request(a)LISTS.SIERRACLUB.ORG Check out our Listserv Lists support site for more information: http://www.sierraclub.org/lists/faq.asp

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Fwd: Emergency Action: Fire Don Blankenship
by Paul Wilson 15 May '10

15 May '10

here's something everyone can do to put a little pressure on the Massey stock holders. best, paul ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Manny Herrmann, American Rights at Work < action(a)americanrightsatwork.org> Date: Sat, May 15, 2010 at 9:06 AM Subject: Emergency Action: Fire Don Blankenship To: Paul Wilson <pjgrunt(a)gmail.com> <http://www.americanrightsatwork.org> Dear Paul, *The West Virginia miners didn't have to die. * We know it – and at Massey Energy's annual meeting this *Tuesday,* we have a chance to do something about it. *Tell Massey shareholders: Fire Don Blankenship!<http://action.americanrightsatwork.org/campaign/fire_blankenship/3ui55un9l7…> * Last month, 29 miners died in a tragedy that was completely preventable. *That should have been reason enough to fire CEO Don Blankenship immediately.* But he's still at the helm of Massey Energy, and every day he stays on, he continues to endanger his workers. So this Tuesday, at Massey's annual shareholder meeting, mineworkers, union leaders, and community leaders will be protesting Don Blankenship's callous disregard for human life. *We've put together a petition to send a strong message to Massey Energy shareholders and corporate leaders when they meet Tuesday. Can you help us collect at least 10,000 signatures by MIDNIGHT MONDAY? **Sign now: Tell Massey shareholders to fire Don Blankenship!*<http://action.americanrightsatwork.org/campaign/fire_blankenship/3ui55un9l7…> Don Blankenship's track record includes: ignoring safety regulations, intimidating workers, and spending millions to elect *judges* who will protect his interests. And he even helps lead the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in its anti-worker campaigns!1,2 *He clearly put profits before safety. That should have been reason enough for Massey's board to find a new CEO.* But since the blood of 29 miners wasn't enough for Massey's board to take immediate action to fire him, hopefully the 30% drop in Massey's stock will give them another reason. That's right – Massey's stock is down more than 30% since the Upper Big Branch disaster, and Blankenship is *still *CEO. That's why – in addition to hundreds of mine workers, union leaders, and allies – big institutional shareholders are speaking up, too. Will you add your voice? *Tell Massey shareholders: Do the right thing and fire Don Blankenship!<http://action.americanrightsatwork.org/campaign/fire_blankenship/3ui55un9l7…> * While firing Blankenship won't give even a measure of justice to the families who lost loved ones in this horrific tragedy, every day he stays as CEO is a slap in the face – a painful reminder of the human cost of corporate greed. We can hold him accountable. *Tell Massey Energy: Blankenship has to go!*<http://action.americanrightsatwork.org/campaign/fire_blankenship/3ui55un9l7…> Thanks so much for all you do for workers' rights. Sincerely, Manny, Liz, and the American Rights at Work team P.S. If Don Blankenship loses his job as the CEO of Massey, he'll almost certainly lose his seat on the board of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, too. That'll send a powerful message that corporate America can't ignore: a callous, low-road, anti-worker approach to management is not the way to go. Please *take action now – call on Massey's board to fire Don Blankenship and replace him with someone who cares about worker safety.*<http://action.americanrightsatwork.org/campaign/fire_blankenship/3ui55un9l7…> 1 http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/40533<http://action.americanrightsatwork.org/ct/c1vCFl11rBMA/> 2 http://www.uschamber.com/about/board/all.htm<http://action.americanrightsatwork.org/ct/cdvCFl11rBMM/> This message was sent to pjgrunt(a)gmail.com. Visit your subscription management page<http://action.americanrightsatwork.org/aaraw/smp.tcl?nkey=3ui55un9l7mxb8it&>to modify your email communication preferences or update your personal profile. To stop receiving American Rights at Work E-Activist Alerts, click to unsubscribe<http://action.americanrightsatwork.org/aaraw/remove-domain-direct.tcl?ctx=s…>. To stop ALL email from American Rights at Work, click to remove<http://action.americanrightsatwork.org/aaraw/remove-domain-direct.tcl?ctx=c…>yourself from our lists (or reply via email with "remove or unsubscribe" in the subject line). -- Paul Wilson Sierra Club 504 Jefferson Ave Charles Town, WV 25414-1130 Phone: 304-725-4360 Cell: 304-279-1361 "There is no forward until you have gone back" ~Buddha "In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous" ~ Aristotle

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Fw: Our Work Starts Now!
by Jim Sconyers 14 May '10

14 May '10

Jim Sconyers jim_scon(a)yahoo.com 304.698.9628 Remember: Mother Nature bats last. ----- Forwarded Message ---- From: Jim Sconyers <jim_scon(a)yahoo.com> To: Jim Sconyers <jim_scon(a)yahoo.com> Sent: Thu, May 13, 2010 7:35:44 AM Subject: Fw: Our Work Starts Now! Jim Sconyers jim_scon(a)yahoo.com 304.698.9628 Remember: Mother Nature bats last. ----- Forwarded Message ---- From: "Sarah Hodgdon, Sierra Club" <membership.services(a)sierraclub.org> To: jim_scon(a)yahoo.com Sent: Wed, May 12, 2010 8:30:36 PM Subject: Our Work Starts Now! Sierra Club View a web version of this email. Dear Jim, The oil disaster in the Gulf… the coal-mining disaster in West Virginia… enough is enough! Photo courtesy of U.S. Coast Guard Demand that Your Senators Lead the Way to Pass Strong Climate and Energy Legislation. Over the past two weeks, we have all watched the BP oil disaster unfold in the Gulf Coast, and Americans across the country have shown their solidarity with coastal communities grappling with the devastation to their economy and environment. We must break our addiction to the dirty, dangerous fossil fuels that led to the tragedy in the Gulf. Tell your senators we need to put America back in control of our energy future by ending our reliance on dirty, dangerous, and deadly fossil fuels. Today, Senators Kerry and Lieberman introduced a climate proposal that can serve as the foundation on which to build a clean energy economy that no longer relies on oil and coal -- but only if the bill is substantially improved and strengthened. Our leaders in the Senate must seize this opportunity to strengthen their draft legislation into a final bill that will unchain us from dirty energy sources. Demand that your senators lead the effort to move us toward a clean energy future. Last month's coal mine tragedy in West Virginia and the oil disaster in the Gulf make it clear -- we cannot allow dirty energy companies to continue setting the agenda in Washington while putting our health, our safety, our economy, and our national security at risk. Our work starts now -- contact your senators today and tell them to stand up to pressure from the dirty energy lobby and end our reliance on oil and coal. Thanks for all that you do to protect our environment. Sarah Hodgdon Sierra Club Conservation Director P.S. Please forward this message and help spread the word to your friends and family! If you do not wish to receive future emails like this, click here to be removed from this type of email contact. Update My Profile| Manage My Email Preferences | Update My Interests Sierra Club 85 Second St. San Francisco, CA 94105

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Fwd: Fw: Since spill, feds have given 27 waivers to oil companies in gulf | McClatchy
by James Kotcon 11 May '10

11 May '10

This is an on-going news story. Although Obama says there is a moratorium on oil leasing, it does not appear that the Mineral Management Service has gotten the memo. JBK

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Fwd: Fw: We Can't Fight Global Warming Blindfolded
by James Kotcon 11 May '10

11 May '10

To: Energy Committee This is a pretty important initiative, one that could go a long way toward solving many of our energy issues. I recommend that someone take a look at this and try drafting a response letter. I am very interested and will assist, but this is an opportunity for someone who wants to step up their involvement. It is a short-term project, but one with a potentially big impact. Who wants to "Take It To The Next Level!"? JBK

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Fw: We Can't Fight Global Warming Blindfolded
by Jim Sconyers 11 May '10

11 May '10

Jim Sconyers jim_scon(a)yahoo.com 304.698.9628 Remember: Mother Nature bats last. ----- Forwarded Message ---- From: "Mary Anne Hitt, Sierra Club" <membership.services(a)sierraclub.org> To: jim_scon(a)yahoo.com Sent: Mon, May 10, 2010 9:03:03 PM Subject: We Can't Fight Global Warming Blindfolded Sierra Club View a web version of this email. Jim, Tell CEQ it's Time for Federal Agencies to Start Factoring Climate into their Decisions. Environmental impacts studies are a key tool that federal agencies use to evaluate the possible environmental costs of the permits they issue and the work they do. However, climate change is rarely factored into these decisions, allowing projects like coal power plants and mega-highways to move forward without owning up to their real impacts. But the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) is working to change this, and they need your help. Let CEQ know that you support their work to make climate change a factor in the decision making process by sending a public comment today. Environmental disasters happen because we turn a blind eye to the risks. The BP oil disaster that is unfolding in the Gulf? The Deepwater Horizon was exempted from a detailed environmental impact study because three reviews concluded that a spill was "unlikely."1 We cannot allow an oversight like this to occur again, and yet they happen every day because federal agencies are allowed to ignore the greatest threat to our environment -- global warming. Tell CEQ we cannot wait any longer for new guidance requiring agencies to evaluate the risk to our climate when making decisions. The new guidance that CEQ proposed isn't perfect. It exempts land management decisions from climate analysis, meaning efforts to cut forests or plow under prairies can move forward without addressing the critical role our wild places play in trapping carbon pollution. Thank CEQ for starting the process by proposing to require climate be included in the decision making process, and tell them to finish the job by closing the loophole for land management. Thanks for all that you do to protect the environment. Mary Anne Hitt Sierra Club Big Picture Campaign P.S. Please forward this message and help spread the word to your friends and family! [1] "U.S. exempted BP's Gulf of Mexico drilling from environmental impact study," Juliet Eilperin, The Washington Post: May 10, 2010. If you do not wish to receive future emails like this, click here to be removed from this type of email contact. Update My Profile| Manage My Email Preferences | Update My Interests Sierra Club 85 Second St. San Francisco, CA 94105

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NYTimes: In Backing Clean Energy Start-Ups, Fund Looks for Longer Résumés
by William DePaulo 11 May '10

11 May '10

From The New York Times: In Backing Clean Energy Start-Ups, Fund Looks for Longer Résumés Virgin Green Fund, an investment firm backed by Richard Branson, is investing in established companies, with better odds, instead of looking for home runs. http://nyti.ms/akOzvH Get The New York Times on your iPhone for free by visiting http://itunes.com/apps/nytimes William V DePaulo, Esq 179 Summers Street #232 Charleston WV 25301-2163 Tel 304-342-5588 Fax 304-342-5505 william.depaulo(a)gmail.com www.passeggiata.com

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Fwd: EPA announces coal ash rule today!
by Paul Wilson 07 May '10

07 May '10

might be worthwhile to get out a chapter alert on either CONVIO or just on the Chapter website? best, paul ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Lyndsay Moseley <Lyndsay.Moseley(a)sierraclub.org> Date: Tue, May 4, 2010 at 2:39 PM Subject: EPA announces coal ash rule today! To: COAL-CAMPAIGN-ALERTS(a)lists.sierraclub.org All: EPA finally proposed new safeguards for toxic coal ash today! After a quick review, EPA has proposed two options for regulation of coal ash under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), and is seeking public comment on both options. The first option designates coal ash as a "special waste" under Subtitle C of RCRA and would provide the kind of federally enforceable safeguards we've been advocating for to adequately protect the public from toxic coal ash. The other option regulates coal ash under Subtitle D of RCRA and the other treats toxic coal ash (which contains potentially dangerous levels of arsenic, lead, and other heavy metals) less stringent than household garbage. Both the science and past failures of the patchwork of state-based regulations call for the stronger, federal protections. There will be a 90-day public comment period during which Sierra Club will be working hard to call on EPA to adopt the most protective safeguards. Stay tuned! Here is a link to the proposed rule: http://www.epa.gov/osw/nonhaz/industrial/special/fossil/ccr-rule/ccr-rule-p… Best, Lyndsay Lyndsay Moseley Washington Representative Sierra Club, Beyond Coal Campaign 408 C St. NE Washington, DC 20002 tel: 202-548-4581 fax: 202-547-6009 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - To unsubscribe from the COAL-CAMPAIGN-ALERTS list, send any message to: COAL-CAMPAIGN-ALERTS-signoff-request(a)LISTS.SIERRACLUB.ORG Check out our Listserv Lists support site for more information: http://www.sierraclub.org/lists/faq.asp Sign up to receive Sierra Club Insider, the flagship e-newsletter. Sent out twice a month, it features the Club's latest news and activities. Subscribe and view recent editions at http://www.sierraclub.org/insider/ -- Paul Wilson Sierra Club 504 Jefferson Ave Charles Town, WV 25414-1130 Phone: 304-725-4360 Cell: 304-279-1361 "There is no forward until you have gone back" ~Buddha "In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous" ~ Aristotle

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Coal CEO''s swagger .... strong-interesting piece by Susanna Rodell
by Frank Young 06 May '10

06 May '10

This was one of the posts in Vivian Stoickman's daily list for OVEC website. Many of us remember Susanna Rodell from her former work with the Charleston (WV) Gazette...... http://www.ajc.com/opinion/the-swagger-behind-a-520788.html The swagger behind a mining tragedy By Susanna Rodell 7:15 p.m. Wednesday, May 5, 2010 After I signed on as editorial page editor of the Charleston Gazette, West Virginia’s premier newspaper, the first visitor to the editorial board was Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship. I arrived in 2003, and I’d been mostly delighted with this quirky, gorgeous and still isolated piece of America. But I quickly bumped up against West Virginia’s dark side: the ravages of coal mining. The mountains were being raped. Mountaintop removal was destroying much of the last wild landscape in the eastern U.S. “Mountaintop removal,” by the way, is a terrible misnomer, since it creates the impression that it’s simply a matter of slicing the tops off some remote peaks. In fact, the practice systematically destroys entire mountains, reducing them to rubble that then chokes the surrounding valleys, creating thousands of acres of decimated, dead landscape. And the main character in this ongoing drama, I was informed — a man who could have come from Central Casting in the role of old-fashioned mustachioed Bad Guy — was Blankenship. He arrived at our office with a PR guy in a green suit and regaled our little gathering with his Local Boy history: childhood in rural Mingo County, graduation from West Virginia University, working his way up from the bottom of the industry. He then told us he thought it would be only fitting for us to give him a regular column. We didn’t do that. We told him we’d be happy to treat him as any other member of the community and consider any contribution to our op-ed page, but that we weren’t in the habit of handing out weekly space to anyone who asked for it. To him, I’m sure, it only seemed fair that he should have his own regular forum in the paper to “balance” the aggressive and dedicated reporting of our coal beat reporter, Ken Ward. What I remember most about the encounter, however, was Blankenship’s quiet arrogance: He was clearly a man used to getting what he wanted and utterly convinced of his right to walk into the local newspaper and demand a forum. Once he figured out that wasn’t going to happen, we paid a price: He slapped the paper with a $300 million defamation suit. He lost the suit eventually, but it cost our little paper dearly in legal fees. And in the intervening time, he would ruin the career of a state Supreme Court judge who ruled against his company in environmental suits, spending millions to promote the election of an unknown lawyer who then ruled in his favor. For a while, it seemed Blankenship would have his way. The Bush administration had stacked the Mining Safety and Health Administration and the EPA with industry-friendly types who weren’t much interested in enforcing environmental or safety regulations. Ward’s reporting at the Gazette doggedly pointed this out, along with the tragic results. >From time to time, as in 2007 with the Sago disaster, national attention would briefly be focused on West Virginia. But only briefly. And in my subsequent forays into the world beyond those mountains, I found it nearly impossible to get anyone to listen to the story. Beyond the mountains, West Virginia seemed to exist only as an amusing stereotype: pretty scenery and poor people, some of them coal miners. Not really a part of 21st-century America. That isolation helped Blankenship. For years it seemed no one outside the state cared that he had succeeded in buying his own justice. It also helped the man to believe in his own mythology. For a few years, he seemed invincible. Then two things happened: The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last year that Brent Benjamin, the judge elected with the benefit of Blankenship’s largesse, should have recused himself from ruling in a suit involving Massey. Then came the explosion at Montcoal, killing 29 miners, the worst U.S. coal-mining disaster in 40 years, and subsequent revelations about Massey’s safety record. And now the FBI has opened a criminal investigation into the Massey tragedy; several news outlets report that it includes allegations of bribery of state and federal inspectors. Blankenship is not the only character in this story. Last week, two miners were killed in a roof collapse at a mine in Kentucky. The Kentucky mine belongs to another company, and the neglect of Appalachia is a theme in American history. But the Massey CEO’s aggressive tactics, combined with the recent anti-regulatory atmosphere in Washington, helped perpetuate both environmental and human disasters. West Virginia’s coal industry likes to tout itself as the lifeblood of the state’s economy. Too much government interference, the coal apologists love to assert, will cripple a state whose economy is already close to the weakest in the nation. But as a former colleague reminded me this week, there are now more nurses in the state than coal miners. This year, with a nonfarm work force of about 730,000, mining and forestry combined only employed 27,900. Coal only accounts for about 7 percent of the gross state product. In fact, coal is probably more important to the rest of the country than it is to West Virginians. Most of the relatively cheap electricity we depend on comes from coal. Thanks to automation (including the scary, stories-high machines that efficiently chew up the mountains), more coal is mined today with fewer workers. All those “clean” cars we intend to plug in will have to get their power from somewhere: chances are, from coal-fired plants. So yes, while the swaggering Blankenship deserves considerable blame, there’s another enemy in this story: the one we see in the mirror. The least we can do, as participants in this drama, is to remember who’s risking their lives to keep our lights on, and encourage our lawmakers to keep up the pressure on Big Coal and its enablers to clean up their act. Make sure they can’t hide behind the mountains any more. Susanna Rodell lives in Milton.

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NYTimes.com: No Fooling Mother Nature
by william.depaulo＠gmail.com 05 May '10

05 May '10

This page was sent to you by: william.depaulo(a)gmail.com. OPINION | May 05, 2010 Op-Ed Columnist: No Fooling Mother Nature By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN After the oil spill in the gulf, an energy/climate/jobs bill is needed more than ever. America has to stop messing around with the environment's future. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/05/opinion/05friedman.html?emc=eta1 ---------------------------------------------------------- ABOUT THIS E-MAIL This e-mail was sent to you by a friend through NYTimes.com's E-mail This Article service. For general information about NYTimes.com, write to help(a)nytimes.com. NYTimes.com 620 Eighth Avenue New York, NY 10018 Copyright 2010 The New York Times Company

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FW: EPA announces coal ash rule today!
by Grubb, Karen 04 May '10

04 May '10

Should we do a future Convio on this topic? -----Original Message----- From: Announcements from the National Coal Campaign team. [mailto:COAL-CAMPAIGN-ALERTS@LISTS.SIERRACLUB.ORG] On Behalf Of Lyndsay Moseley Sent: Tuesday, May 04, 2010 2:39 PM To: COAL-CAMPAIGN-ALERTS(a)LISTS.SIERRACLUB.ORG Subject: EPA announces coal ash rule today! All: EPA finally proposed new safeguards for toxic coal ash today! After a quick review, EPA has proposed two options for regulation of coal ash under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), and is seeking public comment on both options. The first option designates coal ash as a "special waste" under Subtitle C of RCRA and would provide the kind of federally enforceable safeguards we've been advocating for to adequately protect the public from toxic coal ash. The other option regulates coal ash under Subtitle D of RCRA and the other treats toxic coal ash (which contains potentially dangerous levels of arsenic, lead, and other heavy metals) less stringent than household garbage. Both the science and past failures of the patchwork of state-based regulations call for the stronger, federal protections. There will be a 90-day public comment period during which Sierra Club will be working hard to call on EPA to adopt the most protective safeguards. Stay tuned! Here is a link to the proposed rule: http://www.epa.gov/osw/nonhaz/industrial/special/fossil/ccr-rule/ccr-rul e-prop.pdf Best, Lyndsay Lyndsay Moseley Washington Representative Sierra Club, Beyond Coal Campaign 408 C St. NE Washington, DC 20002 tel: 202-548-4581 fax: 202-547-6009 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - To unsubscribe from the COAL-CAMPAIGN-ALERTS list, send any message to: COAL-CAMPAIGN-ALERTS-signoff-request(a)LISTS.SIERRACLUB.ORG Check out our Listserv Lists support site for more information: http://www.sierraclub.org/lists/faq.asp Sign up to receive Sierra Club Insider, the flagship e-newsletter. Sent out twice a month, it features the Club's latest news and activities. Subscribe and view recent editions at http://www.sierraclub.org/insider/

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Fwd: WVNS story: When Out-Of-State Companies Drill For Gas, What Does WV Get?
by Paul Wilson 03 May '10

03 May '10

fyi, paul ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Public News Service <wvns(a)newsservice.org> Date: Mon, May 3, 2010 at 5:58 AM Subject: WVNS story: When Out-Of-State Companies Drill For Gas, What Does WV Get? To: PaulWilson <pjgrunt(a)gmail.com> Public News Service-WV May 03, 2010 When Out-Of-State Companies Drill For Gas, What Does WV Get? CHARLESTON, W.Va. - Workers and residents are asking how much West Virginia is getting out of the drilling boom in the huge Marcellus Shale natural gas field. Three union locals - operating engineers, pipeline welders and laborers - are picketing a Marshall County processing station. Donnie Huff with Local 132 of the *International Union of Operating Engineerssays* says it's part of an enormous pipeline system being built by a Texas company, Caiman Energy, along the Ohio valley. It's supposed to employ thousands, but so far, Huff says, the jobs are going to workers from Texas and Oklahoma. "Like the timber industry, they raped West Virginia, exported everything. Same thing happened with the coal industry - 90 percent of it is going out of state. It's time West Virginia gets something for our natural resources." An official with a natural gas trade group says many of the Marcellus jobs are going to West Virginians, and that Caiman has used West Virginia contractors in the past. But in some cases, he says, the jobs require special skills that the local workforce lacks. Huff disagrees, saying highly skilled local workers could fill all the jobs. "Pipeline welders, UA tradespeople, pipeline operators, station operators, building trade operators - yeah, we could man all their work." The gas drilling boom also strains resources in rural counties, and it's unclear how much it adds to the tax base. Ray Renaud, with the *Wetzel County Action Group*, is also a volunteer firefighter. He says they've had good results talking to Chesapeake Energy about some transportation issues, but the boom definitely adds to the need for emergency services. "Now, our call volumes have increased rather dramatically. With all this road volume, our accident rates are very high and there are also accidents on well sites that we have to respond to." Caiman Energy did not return a call requesting comment. Click here to view this story on the Public News Service RSS site and access an audio version of this and other stories: http://www.publicnewsservice.org/index.php?/content/article/13747-1<http://www.publicnewsservice.org/index.php?/content/article/13747-1> --- To be removed from this list please send an e-mail to remove(a)publicnewsservice.org <remove(a)publicnewsservice.org?subject=remove>and put the word "remove" in the subject line. -- Paul Wilson Sierra Club 504 Jefferson Ave Charles Town, WV 25414-1130 Phone: 304-725-4360 Cell: 304-279-1361 "There is no forward until you have gone back" ~Buddha "In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous" ~ Aristotle

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Fwd: WVNS story: Miners Claim Massey Safety Priority is "The Big Lie"
by Paul Wilson 29 Apr '10

29 Apr '10

fyi, paul ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Public News Service <wvns(a)newsservice.org> Date: Thu, Apr 29, 2010 at 3:57 AM Subject: WVNS story: Miners Claim Massey Safety Priority is "The Big Lie" To: PaulWilson <pjgrunt(a)gmail.com> Public News Service-WV April 29, 2010 *Miners Claim Massey Safety Priority is "The Big Lie"* CHARLESTON, W.Va. - A member of the Massey Energy board of directors says the charge that the company trades safety for profit is "the big lie" being told by unions and trial lawyers. But in the month since 29 miners died in Massey's Upper Big Branch mine, dozens of current and former company employees have criticized the company in the press and in testimony to Congress. Many have refused to give their names, but some, like former Massey miner Chuck Nelson of Glen Daniel, are speaking publicly. Nelson worked at six different Massey mines over seven years, and he says safety practices were the same in all of them. "They broke every law in the book. They kept their men in a dead run to produce as much coal as they could. It was always production first, and safety, I would rate it way down the line." Mine safety officials say methane probably played a part in the Upper Big Branch explosion. Nelson claims he was regularly told to dismantle ventilation controls used to reduce methane concentrations. "Every day, first thing that we did was we destroyed our ventilation system by taking our line curtain down, what directs the air flow up to the miner. If you have a concentration of methane, that's what that air's for." Some miners say Massey punishes those who speak up about safety issues, which is why they refuse to give their names when speaking to reporters. Nelson confirms what they say. "Workers not allowed to complain about safety issues? That's a very accurate statement. If they do speak out, there will be repercussions took against them." Massey spokesmen insist the company emphasizes safety and follows all regulations, but figures show that in the last decade, the company has had more than twice as many fatal accidents as any other mine operator. Massey has not responded specifically to Nelson's allegations. A *West Virginia News Service* reporter first spoke to Nelson about the breaking of black lung rules on Dec. 9, 2009. A copy of that story is available at www.publicnewsservice.org<http://www.publicnewsservice.org/index.php?/content/article/11703-1>. Click here to view this story on the Public News Service RSS site and access an audio version of this and other stories: http://www.publicnewsservice.org/index.php?/content/article/13708-1<http://www.publicnewsservice.org/index.php?/content/article/13708-1> --- -- Paul Wilson Sierra Club 504 Jefferson Ave Charles Town, WV 25414-1130 Phone: 304-725-4360 Cell: 304-279-1361 "There is no forward until you have gone back" ~Buddha "In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous" ~ Aristotle

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NYTimes: Failure Is Not an Option
by William DePaulo 29 Apr '10

29 Apr '10

From The New York Times: OP-ED COLUMNIST: Failure Is Not an Option While our lawmakers in Washington are stalling on a bipartisan climate/ energy/jobs bill, Beijing is celebrating. http://nyti.ms/aT0U6i Get The New York Times on your iPhone for free by visiting http://itunes.com/apps/nytimes William V DePaulo, Esq 179 Summers Street #232 Charleston WV 25301-2163 Tel 304-342-5588 Fax 304-342-5505 william.depaulo(a)gmail.com www.passeggiata.com

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Vivian Stockman vs. Don Blankenship on MTR
by Frank Young 28 Apr '10

28 Apr '10

I am not sure when this took place. Part 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zshEKrYkC3Y Part 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgcqAZpc_3c Peace, Maria Gunnoe HELP NOW @ www.mtrstopshere.com www.ohvec.org www.southwings.org www.goldmanprize.org www.ilovemountains.org "Contemplating the use of mountains and hillsides as symbols in Holy Scripture, underscores what a special gift our mountains are for the people of West Virginia. Majestic, inspiring, and, at times, intimidating, our mountains remind us of the glory of the view after the challenge of the climb. Perhaps that is why West Virginians retain a stalwart and independent character, always inspired by possibilities and undaunted by difficulties." Robert C. Byrd

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DEP News: Console monitoring of golden algae
by Jonathan Rosenbaum 28 Apr '10

28 Apr '10

============================================================ Wednesday, April 28, 2010 @ 10:59 AM ============================================================ The West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection has issued an order to Consolidation Coal Company (Consol) that establishes guidelines for how the company is to manage its Blacksville #2 and St. Leo discharges through the summer and fall. The order is a follow-up to an order issued to the company in December, which expires April 30. Under the new order, Consol is required to reduce its discharge at the St. Leo facility by 50 percent; monitor for chlorides, total dissolved solids, selenium and specific conductivity twice a month and report results to the DEP; and adhere to chloride limits of either 230 or 860 mg/l, based on stream flow. The company will continue to monitor for golden algae weekly at 16 different sampling sites and if the algae is detected, the company is to notify the WVDEP as soon as it obtains the results, and the sampling frequency shall increase to twice per week, with results provided to the WVDEP within 4 days of sampling. “This order is written in such a way that the agency can change the parameters if the algae appear to be blooming,” said Scott Mandirola, director of the Division of Water and Waste Management. “Rather than water temperature being the variable that triggers adjustments to this order, as was appropriate during the winter months; water flow and the presence of golden algae will be the triggers that require the company to make changes during the summer and fall.” In addition, Consol is required to continue development of an enhanced wastewater treatment facility and maintain an accounting system to track the volume and disposal of all reject water generated by the reverse osmosis pilot treatment project it began under the previous order. The order is effective from midnight Friday night to October 31, 2010.

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Fwd: WVNS story: UMWA: Non-Union Miners 1/3 As Safe, 70% At Upper Big Branch Wanted Union Vote
by Paul Wilson 22 Apr '10

22 Apr '10

good story from WV Public News Service. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Public News Service <wvns(a)newsservice.org> Date: Wed, Apr 21, 2010 at 3:58 AM Subject: WVNS story: UMWA: Non-Union Miners 1 3 As Safe, 70% At UBB Wanted Union Vote To: PaulWilson <pjgrunt(a)gmail.com> Public News Service-WV April 21, 2010 UMWA: Non-Union Miners 1 3 As Safe, 70% At UBB Wanted Union Vote CHARLESTON, W. Va. - Fatal mine accidents like the one that killed 29 two weeks ago are much less likely at union mines. While 30 percent of coal miners are *United Mine Workers of America* (UMWA) members, union miners account for only ten percent of coal mine fatalities. Phil Smith, UMWA communications director, cites safety provisions in their contracts – including job protection for miners who refuse unsafe work, and union members accompanying government inspectors – as some of the reasons for the two-thirds difference. "Workers who work in union mines are statistically less likely to be involved in fatal accidents than workers who are in a non-union situation." There also is mounting evidence that Massey Energy's fight with the UMWA could have figured into the conditions at Upper Big Branch. Smith says it was a union mine before Massey bought it, but the company ran what he calls "a difficult union-busting campaign," after which the UMWA lost a tie vote. When Massey took over the mine, Smith says, seven out of ten miners there favored a union vote. He believes if the Employee Free Choice Act now being debated in Congress had been law, it would have been sufficient for the company to force recognition of the union. "With over 70 percent signed up on cards, that would have more than met the tests of the Employee Free Choice Act, by a long shot." More details are emerging about Massey's financial dealings as well. Ted Boettner, executive director of the *West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy*, says over the last three years, the company was in the 35 percent tax bracket for federal corporate income taxes, but actually paid a little less than six percent. "The high profits and low taxes paid by Massey Energy are difficult to reconcile with their inability to create a safe mine." Massey did not return repeated calls for comment. Click here to view this story on the Public News Service RSS site and access an audio version of this and other stories: http://www.publicnewsservice.org/index.php?/content/article/13555-1<http://www.publicnewsservice.org/index.php?/content/article/13555-1> --- To be removed from this list please send an e-mail to remove(a)publicnewsservice.org <remove(a)publicnewsservice.org?subject=remove>and put the word "remove" in the subject line. -- Paul Wilson Sierra Club 504 Jefferson Ave Charles Town, WV 25414-1130 Phone: 304-725-4360 Cell: 304-279-1361 "There is no forward until you have gone back" ~Buddha "In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous" ~ Aristotle

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More public parks in state opened to gas drilling
by Frank Young 22 Apr '10

22 Apr '10

Blank The Marion County Commission approved a lease agreement with Chesapeake Energy on Wednesday that allows the company to drill at the Poor Farm/BMX track and on a hillside by Curtisville Lake. http://www.wvgazette.com/News/201004220242

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Fw: We Can't "Just Trust" Coal Companies
by Jim Sconyers 20 Apr '10

20 Apr '10

Carbon capture rule needs your support. Jim Sconyers jim_scon(a)yahoo.com 304.698.9628 Remember: Mother Nature bats last. --- On Mon, 4/19/10, Mary Anne Hitt, Sierra Club <membership.services(a)sierraclub.org> wrote: From: Mary Anne Hitt, Sierra Club <membership.services(a)sierraclub.org> Subject: We Can't "Just Trust" Coal Companies To: jim_scon(a)yahoo.com Date: Monday, April 19, 2010, 9:42 PM Sierra Club #yiv1989451034 #yiv1989451034 .normal, #yiv1989451034 , #yiv1989451034 p, #yiv1989451034 td, #yiv1989451034 tr, #yiv1989451034 h1, #yiv1989451034 h2, #yiv1989451034 h3, #yiv1989451034 h4, #yiv1989451034 h5, #yiv1989451034 h6, #yiv1989451034 ul, #yiv1989451034 li, #yiv1989451034 div, #yiv1989451034 input, #yiv1989451034 textarea, #yiv1989451034 option, #yiv1989451034 select { font-family:verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-style:normal;} #yiv1989451034 .normal, #yiv1989451034 , #yiv1989451034 p, #yiv1989451034 td, #yiv1989451034 tr, #yiv1989451034 li, #yiv1989451034 div, #yiv1989451034 input, #yiv1989451034 textarea, #yiv1989451034 option, #yiv1989451034 select {font-size:12px;} #yiv1989451034 .normal {color:#000000;} #yiv1989451034 {background-color:#ffffff;} #yiv1989451034 #yiv1989451034 a {color:#333366;} #yiv1989451034 a:visited {color:#666666;} #yiv1989451034 a:hover {color:#3333ff;} #yiv1989451034 #yiv1989451034 .blackborder {border-color:#000000;} #yiv1989451034 #yiv1989451034 .smalltext {font-size:10px;} #yiv1989451034 .verysmalltext {font-size:9px;} #yiv1989451034 #yiv1989451034 H1, #yiv1989451034 .header { font-size:14px;color:#000000;font-weight:700;} #yiv1989451034 .issueheader { margin-bottom:5px;color:#669900;} #yiv1989451034 #yiv1989451034 H2, #yiv1989451034 .subtitle { font-size:12px;color:#669900;font-weight:700; } View a web version of this email. Jim, Ask the EPA to Carefully Monitor Leaks from CSS Operations. If we're going to fight global warming pollution, we first need to know where it's coming from. The EPA took a huge step towards holding big polluters accountable when it finalized the first greenhouse gas reporting requirements in October. Now it's time to finish the job. Send a public comment and help the EPA take on big polluters by closing loopholes that could allow coal plants to hide their emissions. Coal is dirty. There is no getting around this simple fact. But the industry wants you to believe that it can reduce its global warming impact by pumping emissions underground and keeping them there through a process called carbon capture and sequestration (CSS). CSS is expensive and largely untested. But if someone does try it, it is vital that we know whether or not the system is leaking. Tell the EPA that it's not enough to just trust that coal plants are cleaning up their act; we must monitor leaks from underground greenhouse gas storage. Under President Obama's direction, the EPA is taking a Big Picture approach to fighting global warming by bringing together the various pieces necessary to create a thorough strategy to tackle climate change. The first step was simply acknowledging the problem after eight years of inaction. Now we need to give the EPA the tools it needs to monitor large sources of global warming pollution. Knowledge is power. Show your public support for a reporting system that will give the EPA the information it needs to fight climate change. Thanks for all that you do to protect the environment. Mary Anne Hitt Sierra Club Big Picture Campaign P.S. Please forward this message and help spread the word to your friends and family! If you do not wish to receive future emails like this, click here to be removed from this type of email contact. Update My Profile | Manage My Email Preferences | Update My Interests Sierra Club 85 Second St. San Francisco, CA 94105

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Fwd: Re: [GW-ACT-LEADERS] Senators consider gasoline tax as part of climate bill
by James Kotcon 19 Apr '10

19 Apr '10

Some very interesting arguments below. I think Ned Ford makes some very credible arguments when he says that we need to talk about spending realistic amounts of money and that such spending should be discussed in the context of how much money it saves comparted to doing nothing. I also think we need to continue talking about how to end burning of coal for electricity within 20 years, and end natural gas within 5 years after that. When we make that argument, the concept of investing in energy infrastructure (power plants, transmission lines, scrubbers, etc.) that is dependent on fossil fuels makes little sense. We need to be planning for the relatively near-term shut-down of these plants, rather than investing to keep them open longer. Enjoy. JBK >>> Ned Ford <Ned.Ford(a)FUSE.NET> 4/16/2010 11:30 PM >>> Hi Dave, If you're hung up on a tax that is large enough to cause behavior change, I think you are going to have a long wait. If we separate the two unrelated concepts - a tax large enough to cause behavior change - from a tax large enough to solve global warming - we begin to have options that might really pass Congress. I can't imagine how the United States would arrive at a political decision on how to spend $500 billion per year. We only spend about a trillion dollars per year on energy - given that it can rise to almost $1.5 trillion based on the wild movements of gas or oil prices. We don't need half of that per year to eliminate fossil fuel use. Nor is there a chance that such a large amount of money could be spent responsibly. Look at how much trouble they are having spending the stimulus money. We need to spend about $18 billion on electric efficiency, which will generate about $54 billion in savings. Then we need to spend about $18 billion of those savings to supplement the $20 billion or so we are already spending on electric renewables. (We're already spending $5.4 billion on electric efficiency, and saving about $16 billion as a result, but hardly anyone knows that). That puts us on track to end coal in 20 years and natural gas five years later. We need to spend about $12 billion per year on natural gas efficiency, and work like hell to get zero energy buildings to be the standard in as few years as possible. That puts us on track to end natural gas use for heating in about forty or fifty years - we might have to use renewable electricity to heat some older buildings which can't be retrofit. We can have the highest efficiency vehicles and as many electric cars as possible, and we will still be using about half as much petroleum as we are using now. There are probably other solutions that we can develop in ten or twenty years, but I'm not sure what they are. That's about $50 billion per year. The concrete limits on rate - things like the rate of building new buildings and retrofitting old ones, the rate at which we can build wind turbines and replace lightbulbs, and much more, all create absolute limits to how much can be done in a given time period. Tossing out large numbers sounds powerful, but it departs from political reality. To get a solution we need to emphasize that it saves money compared to doing nothing, And we do need some influences on behavior, but those are better achieved through standards than taxes. No matter what the economists think, efficiency programs work better than high prices. The efficiency programs are proven. The high prices are not. (When I make this argument, people talk about gas taxes in Europe. But which came first, the high energy taxes or the infrastructures in European cities which promote walking, public transit, and the traditions of living close to work?) No one really knows how effective energy taxes are in causing behavior. The best indicator we have is the effect of gas prices on consumption, and that's not very promising. - Ned David Simons wrote: 15 cents per gallon is nowhere near enough to influence people's behavior or purchasing, e.g. more efficient cars. Nor is it enough to significantly finance the energy transition we so desperately need, that must happen rapidly. Even $1 per gallon would not be enough. We should be looking at and promoting a carbon tax evenly applied to all sources, capable of producing maybe $500B per year, to address the oncoming crisis adequately. Maybe 20% of that could subsidize low income people. 80% should be invested in the deployment of clean energy technologies, with a small portion put into R&D. The benefits to society at large and to the economy would be enormous. From: Ned Ford <Ned.Ford(a)FUSE.NET> ( mailto:Ned.Ford@FUSE.NET ) To: CONS-SPST-GLOBALWARM-CHAIRS(a)LISTS.SIERRACLUB.ORG Sent: Fri, April 16, 2010 1:18:40 PM Subject: Re: [GW-ACT-LEADERS] Senators consider gasoline tax as part of climate bill This is really important. It would work. 15 cents per gallon would raise about $23 billion per year, which would more than double the new wind installed last year. It would be the largest and most effective carbon reduction strategy I can think of that the petroleum sector could fund. Anything else that was economically and carbon-comparable could be funded too, if wind was the benchmark. I know the public doesn't like taxes, and gas prices are going up, but sell it as a package to reduce the cost of driving. The wind would cut the cost of electricity for the electric car, cut the cost of electricity for everyone (since the total construction of the new wind would be funded independently, and we could link it to things like free air at gas stations and a push for higher tire inflation to save more gas than the tax costs. I'm sure there are other petroleum measures which this could be coupled with that would make this easier to sell and accomplish more. - Ned Carolyn Chase wrote: Senators consider gasoline tax as part of climate bill http://www.ab32ig.com/inthenews.htm#clip1 The Los Angeles Times Estimates put it in the range of 15 cents a gallon. Some oil companies are on board with the plan because it would cost them far less than other proposals to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Jim Tankersley - Los Angeles Times -- April 14, 2010 Leading voices in the Senate are considering a new tax on gasoline as part of an effort to win Republican and oil industry support for the energy and climate bill now idling in Congress. The tax, which according to early estimates would be in the range of 15 cents a gallon, was conceived with the input of several oil companies, including Shell, BP and ConocoPhillips, and is being championed by Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. It is shaping up as a critical but controversial piece in the efforts by Graham, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) to write a climate bill that moderate Republicans could support. Along those lines, the bill will also include an expansion of offshore oil drilling and major new incentives for nuclear power plant construction. Environmental groups have long advocated gasoline taxes to reduce fossil fuel consumption; the oil industry has spent heavily in recent years to fight taxes, which it says would harm consumers. In this case, though, several oil companies like the tax because it figures to cost them far less than other proposals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, including provisions in the climate bill the House passed last year. The Senate bill's sponsors appear to want the revenue raised from the tax to fund a variety of programs that would lower industrial emissions, including helping manufacturers reduce energy use or boosting wind and solar power installations by electric utilities. But the tax has encountered stiff behind-the-scenes resistance from some Democrats, who fear the political specter of increasing gasoline prices as the national average cost of gasoline is expected to crest $3 a gallon this summer. And no other Republicans have publicly announced support for the framework legislation that Graham and the others are circulating on Capitol Hill. Attracting significant Republican support for a bill featuring a tax increase would run counter to historical political trends and to the anti-tax outrage percolating among the "tea party" activists in the GOP base. Sources say the resistance extends to some Obama administration officials. In a statement, White House spokesman Ben Labolt said only that President Obama was "encouraged by the work of Sens. Kerry, Lieberman and Graham to move forward bipartisan, comprehensive energy and climate legislation" and that "we look forward to reviewing the details of the legislation when they are finalized." Some industry analysts and environmentalists question how much a tax would do to reduce emissions from gasoline, particularly if the extra cost to motorists is measured in cents, not dollars. Proponents call the tax approach under consideration a "linked fee," because it links the extra cost for gasoline to the average cost of greenhouse gas emission permits created through a so-called cap-and-trade system for electric utilities. That system would set a declining limit on emissions from power plants and force utilities to buy permits, on a trading market, to emit heat-trapping gases. Under the linked-fee proposal, gasoline taxes would rise in tandem with the prices of industrial emission permits, or fall if the price of permits declines. As negotiations build toward a scheduled unveiling of the bill next week, it's still unclear whether major oil companies and their trade group, the American Petroleum Institute, will explicitly endorse the legislation or at least agree not to fund an ad campaign opposing it. Proponents of a climate bill say such backing would be a major coup. "Getting major oil companies to truly and aggressively support a specific bill mandating greenhouse gas emissions limits and a carbon price would be a significant political accomplishment," said Paul W. Bledsoe, a former Clinton administration official now with the bipartisan National Commission on Energy Policy. Other analysts wonder whether increasingly populist Republicans would follow the industry and support the bill. "It's not clear that a linked fee creates a path to 60 votes" to overcome Senate procedural hurdles, said Scott Segal, a lobbyist for the Bracewell & Giuliani law firm in Washington who represents utilities and refiners on climate policy. Unquestionably, Big Oil can be a formidable opponent: The petroleum institute recently spent millions on ads blasting an Obama proposal to end some industry tax breaks. The group is currently neutral on the linked-fee plan. It needs to see details on the full climate bill and an Energy Information Administration analysis of its effects before taking a position, said Lou Hayden, its senior director for federal relations. If oil companies do back the bill, climate activists will find themselves joining forces with an industry they've long demonized. The tax could also put senators who vote for the bill at the mercy of election attacks if gas prices spike before November -- even though the tax would probably not kick in for several years. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - To unsubscribe from the CONS-SPST-GLOBALWARM-CHAIRS list, send any message to: CONS-SPST-GLOBALWARM-CHAIRS-signoff-request(a)LISTS.SIERRACLUB.ORG Check out our Listserv Lists support site for more information: http://www.sierraclub.org/lists/faq.asp To view the Sierra Club List Terms & Conditions, see: http://www.sierraclub.org/lists/terms.asp - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - To unsubscribe from the CONS-SPST-GLOBALWARM-CHAIRS list, send any message to: CONS-SPST-GLOBALWARM-CHAIRS-signoff-request(a)LISTS.SIERRACLUB.ORG Check out our Listserv Lists support site for more information: http://www.sierraclub.org/lists/faq.asp Sign up to receive Sierra Club Insider, the flagship e-newsletter. Sent out twice a month, it features the Club's latest news and activities. Subscribe and view recent editions at http://www.sierraclub.org/insider/ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - To unsubscribe from the CONS-SPST-GLOBALWARM-CHAIRS list, send any message to: CONS-SPST-GLOBALWARM-CHAIRS-signoff-request(a)LISTS.SIERRACLUB.ORG Check out our Listserv Lists support site for more information: http://www.sierraclub.org/lists/faq.asp Sign up to receive Sierra Club Insider, the flagship e-newsletter. Sent out twice a month, it features the Club's latest news and activities. Subscribe and view recent editions at http://www.sierraclub.org/insider/ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - To unsubscribe from the CONS-SPST-GLOBALWARM-CHAIRS list, send any message to: CONS-SPST-GLOBALWARM-CHAIRS-signoff-request(a)LISTS.SIERRACLUB.ORG Check out our Listserv Lists support site for more information: http://www.sierraclub.org/lists/faq.asp Sign up to receive Sierra Club Insider, the flagship e-newsletter. Sent out twice a month, it features the Club's latest news and activities. Subscribe and view recent editions at http://www.sierraclub.org/insider/

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Fwd: Fw: Southeast Energy Efficiency Alliance (SEEA) NEW REPORT includes your state
by James Kotcon 16 Apr '10

16 Apr '10

The West Virginia-specific report identifies our state as having higher than average energy consumption, especially in the industrial sector. While the state has 0.6 % of the US population, it uses 0.8 % of the energy to produce only 0.4 % of the GDP. Energy efficiency policies could save 900 million dollars for state residents, and help create 5000 new jobs by 2020 (compared to 70,000 unemployed at the end of 2009). Read the report. This is important information to have at your fingertips. JBK >>> Paula Carrell <Paula.Carrell(a)sierraclub.org> 4/15/2010 3:55 PM >>> Apologies for duplication, but I wanted to be certain that all of you -- and your Energy leadership -- saw this. Lots of information here -- sections specific to each state. http://www.seealliance.org/programs/se-efficiency-study.php

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Fw: Selenium News Flash . . .
by Frank Young 16 Apr '10

16 Apr '10

----- Original Message ----- From: DSGJr(a)aol.com To: deniseap(a)earthlink.net ; jbc329(a)earthlink.net ; lesleemac(a)frontiernet.net Cc: jkotcon(a)wvu.edu ; fyoung(a)mountain.net Sent: Friday, April 16, 2010 11:10 AM Subject: Selenium News Flash . . . Just got interviewed by Erica Peterson (WV Public Broadcasting) who tells me that EPA has sent letters to every WV mine that requested more time to meet selenium compliance schedule under the bill passed by the Legislature in 2009 -- EPA is denying their requests. So, note to the Legislature: WE TOLD YOU SO!! don

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Fwd: coal ash report (North Carolina)
by James Kotcon 13 Apr '10

13 Apr '10

>>> "Diggins, Molly" molly.diggins(a)SIERRACLUB.ORG> 4/12/2010 1:38 PM >> ( mailto:molly.diggins@SIERRACLUB.ORG> ) FYI, attached is a report and fact sheet on coal ash issued today by the North Carolina Chapter. It focuses on the largely untold story of problems with structural fill for land development. My guess is that similar problems exist across the country. Early press: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2010/04/12/1371555/report-nc-ignores-coal-… Molly -- Molly Diggins State Director NC Sierra Club (p) 919.833.8467 (e) molly.diggins(a)sierraclub.org - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - To unsubscribe from the CONS-FRED list, send any message to: CONS-FRED-signoff-request(a)LISTS.SIERRACLUB.ORG Check out our Listserv Lists support site for more information: http://www.sierraclub.org/lists/faq.asp To view the Sierra Club List Terms & Conditions, see: http://www.sierraclub.org/lists/terms.asp

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Fw: Charlotte Observer coverage of NC Chapt Coal Ash Report
by James Kotcon 13 Apr '10

13 Apr '10

Below is a story on what the North Carolina Chapter is doing on fly ash. I recently received a proposal from DownStream strategies for a similar study in West Virginia, focusing on the counties around Morgantown where ash dumping is greatest. It would likely be several thousands of dollars, but this may be a useful way to build on the actions elsewhere. Is the WV Chapter interested in doing something like this? JBK >>> Paula Carrell Paula.Carrell(a)sierraclub.org> 4/12/2010 1:50 PM >> ( mailto:Paula.Carrell@sierraclub.org> ) This is my favorite part of the below article: -State officials haven't yet drafted recommended changes. But Crissman said the Sierra Club's recommendations - that ash be dumped only in lined landfills, groundwater monitoring be required at disposal sites and developers held accountable for contamination clean-ups - "look pretty good." ----- Forwarded by Paula Carrell/Sierraclub on 04/12/2010 10:49 AM ----- Report: N.C. ignores coal ash threat Sierra Club says ash used as construction fill endangers water. By Bruce Henderson bhenderson(a)charlotteobserver.com Posted: Monday, Apr. 12, 2010 The state largely ignores millions of tons of ash from coal-fired power plants that threatens to contaminate N.C. groundwater, lakes and streams, the N.C. Sierra Club says in a report today. Coal ash has gotten increased scrutiny since a massive spill of ash sludge in Tennessee in late 2008. Ash contains potentially toxic metals such as arsenic, cadmium and mercury. The Sierra report, like an Observer article in December, focuses on the use of dry ash to fill gullies and prepare roadbeds and building sites. More than 800,000 tons of ash was used for so-called structural fill statewide last year, the report says. Those sites don't have to be lined to keep toxic material out of groundwater and aren't regularly checked to find whether they're tainting water. Property deeds often don't show that ash has been dumped, as state law requires. Ash is known to have contaminated water in Robeson, Nash and Northampton counties, according to state records, the report said. More often, it said, no one looks for contamination. "Wherever the state has looked, there have been problems for the most part," said Molly Diggins, the Sierra Club's state director. "The data is thin because there are no regular inspections or reporting. It's hard to get a full understanding when you don't have a full perspective of potential problems." Mecklenburg, Cabarrus, Catawba, Gaston, Iredell and Rowan are among 20 N.C. counties with structural fill, records show. Iredell has 17 sites, more than any other county, the report said. State scrutiny has increased in recent months, the report says, with violations found at 28 of the 48 sites inspected. Most violations cited a lack of vegetation or soil cover over the ash. Paul Crissman, chief of the state's solid waste section, said his staff first recognized the need for more oversight of structural fill sites since it began finding violations in the mid-1990s. "It led to our being convinced that the Sierra Club is correct and that we need to make new regulations," he said. State officials haven't yet drafted recommended changes. But Crissman said the Sierra Club's recommendations - that ash be dumped only in lined landfills, groundwater monitoring be required at disposal sites and developers held accountable for contamination clean-ups - "look pretty good." A key question in light of state budget problems, he said, is how to pay for additional oversight. The Sierra Club views ash as a further indictment of coal-fired power plants, which it believes should be phased out. Duke Energy says it stopped using ash for structural fill in 2003. Limiting disposal to lined landfills would stop the use of ash in making concrete and cement products, it says, effectively doubling the amount that has to be disposed. "We would support discussions on additional groundwater monitoring for an entire coal-fired power plant site which would encompass on-site ash basins, landfills and structural fills," Duke said in a statement. The Environmental Protection Agency is weighing tougher coal-ash regulations, including whether to label ash as hazardous waste. That designation would be expected to greatly increase oversight and disposal costs. Subscribe to The Charlotte Observer & Earn Miles. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

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Building a green economy in WV
by James Kotcon 13 Apr '10

13 Apr '10

Excellent commentary on the economics of climate change. This is long, but it ought to be required reading by anyone on the Energy Committee. I especially like the point about Ronald Reagan's faith in the "miracle of the marketplace" and the loss of faith by those who claim greenhouse gas controls will bankrupt America. We need to confront the obstructionists with optimism and the appeal to future generations. JBK >>> "William V. DePaulo, Esq." <william.depaulo(a)gmail.com> 4/13/2010 8:28 AM >>> April 5, 2010 Building a Green EconomyBy PAUL KRUGMAN ( http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/editorialsandoped/oped/columnists/pau… ) If you listen to climate scientists — and despite the relentless campaign to discredit their work, you should — it is long past time to do something about emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. If we continue with business as usual, they say, we are facing a rise in global temperatures that will be little short of apocalyptic. And to avoid that apocalypse, we have to wean our economy from the use of fossil fuels, coal above all. But is it possible to make drastic cuts in greenhouse-gas emissions without destroying our economy? Like the debate over climate change ( http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/science/topics/globalwarming/index.html?… ) itself, the debate over climate economics looks very different from the inside than it often does in popular media. The casual reader might have the impression that there are real doubts about whether emissions can be reduced without inflicting severe damage on the economy. In fact, once you filter out the noise generated by special-interest groups, you discover that there is widespread agreement among environmental economists that a market-based program to deal with the threat of climate change — one that limits carbon emissions by putting a price on them — can achieve large results at modest, though not trivial, cost. There is, however, much less agreement on how fast we should move, whether major conservation efforts should start almost immediately or be gradually increased over the course of many decades. In what follows, I will offer a brief survey of the economics of climate change or, more precisely, the economics of lessening climate change. I’ll try to lay out the areas of broad agreement as well as those that remain in major dispute. First, though, a primer in the basic economics of environmental protection. Environmental Econ 101 If there’s a single central insight in economics, it’s this: There are mutual gains from transactions between consenting adults. If the going price of widgets is $10 and I buy a widget, it must be because that widget is worth more than $10 to me. If you sell a widget at that price, it must be because it costs you less than $10 to make it. So buying and selling in the widget market works to the benefit of both buyers and sellers. More than that, some careful analysis shows that if there is effective competition in the widget market, so that the price ends up matching the number of widgets people want to buy to the number of widgets other people want to sell, the outcome is to maximize the total gains to producers and consumers. Free markets are “efficient” — which, in economics-speak as opposed to plain English, means that nobody can be made better off without making someone else worse off. Now, efficiency isn’t everything. In particular, there is no reason to assume that free markets will deliver an outcome that we consider fair or just. So the case for market efficiency says nothing about whether we should have, say, some form of guaranteed health insurance, aid to the poor and so forth. But the logic of basic economics says that we should try to achieve social goals through “aftermarket” interventions. That is, we should let markets do their job, making efficient use of the nation’s resources, then utilize taxes and transfers to help those whom the market passes by. But what if a deal between consenting adults imposes costs on people who are not part of the exchange? What if you manufacture a widget and I buy it, to our mutual benefit, but the process of producing that widget involves dumping toxic sludge into other people’s drinking water? When there are “negative externalities” — costs that economic actors impose on others without paying a price for their actions — any presumption that the market economy, left to its own devices, will do the right thing goes out the window. So what should we do? Environmental economics is all about answering that question. One way to deal with negative externalities is to make rules that prohibit or at least limit behavior that imposes especially high costs on others. That’s what we did in the first major wave of environmental legislation in the early 1970s: cars were required to meet emission standards for the chemicals that cause smog, factories were required to limit the volume of effluent they dumped into waterways and so on. And this approach yielded results; America’s air and water became a lot cleaner in the decades that followed. But while the direct regulation of activities that cause pollution makes sense in some cases, it is seriously defective in others, because it does not offer any scope for flexibility and creativity. Consider the biggest environmental issue of the 1980s — acid rain. Emissions of sulfur dioxide from power plants, it turned out, tend to combine with water downwind and produce flora- and wildlife-destroying sulfuric acid. In 1977, the government made its first stab at confronting the issue, recommending that all new coal-fired plants have scrubbers to remove sulfur dioxide from their emissions. Imposing a tough standard on all plants was problematic, because retrofitting some older plants would have been extremely expensive. By regulating only new plants, however, the government passed up the opportunity to achieve fairly cheap pollution control at plants that were, in fact, easy to retrofit. Short of a de facto federal takeover of the power industry, with federal officials issuing specific instructions to each plant, how was this conundrum to be resolved? Enter Arthur Cecil Pigou, an early-20th-century British don, whose 1920 book, “The Economics of Welfare,” is generally regarded as the ur-text of environmental economics. Somewhat surprisingly, given his current status as a godfather of economically sophisticated environmentalism, Pigou didn’t actually stress the problem of pollution. Rather than focusing on, say, London’s famous fog (actually acrid smog, caused by millions of coal fires), he opened his discussion with an example that must have seemed twee even in 1920, a hypothetical case in which “the game-preserving activities of one occupier involve the overrunning of a neighboring occupier’s land by rabbits.” But never mind. What Pigou enunciated was a principle: economic activities that impose unrequited costs on other people should not always be banned, but they should be discouraged. And the right way to curb an activity, in most cases, is to put a price on it. So Pigou proposed that people who generate negative externalities should have to pay a fee reflecting the costs they impose on others — what has come to be known as a Pigovian tax. The simplest version of a Pigovian tax is an effluent fee: anyone who dumps pollutants into a river, or emits them into the air, must pay a sum proportional to the amount dumped. Pigou’s analysis lay mostly fallow for almost half a century, as economists spent their time grappling with issues that seemed more pressing, like the Great Depression ( http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/g/great_depres… ). But with the rise of environmental regulation, economists dusted off Pigou and began pressing for a “market-based” approach that gives the private sector an incentive, via prices, to limit pollution, as opposed to a “command and control” fix that issues specific instructions in the form of regulations. The initial reaction by many environmental activists to this idea was hostile, largely on moral grounds. Pollution, they felt, should be treated like a crime rather than something you have the right to do as long as you pay enough money. Moral concerns aside, there was also considerable skepticism about whether market incentives would actually be successful in reducing pollution. Even today, Pigovian taxes as originally envisaged are relatively rare. The most successful example I’ve been able to find is a Dutch tax on discharges of water containing organic materials. What has caught on instead is a variant that most economists consider more or less equivalent: a system of tradable emissions permits, a k a cap and trade ( http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/subjects/g/greenhous… ). In this model, a limited number of licenses to emit a specified pollutant, like sulfur dioxide, are issued. A business that wants to create more pollution than it is licensed for can go out and buy additional licenses from other parties; a firm that has more licenses than it intends to use can sell its surplus. This gives everyone an incentive to reduce pollution, because buyers would not have to acquire as many licenses if they can cut back on their emissions, and sellers can unload more licenses if they do the same. In fact, economically, a cap-and-trade system produces the same incentives to reduce pollution as a Pigovian tax, with the price of licenses effectively serving as a tax on pollution. In practice there are a couple of important differences between cap and trade and a pollution tax. One is that the two systems produce different types of uncertainty. If the government imposes a pollution tax, polluters know what price they will have to pay, but the government does not know how much pollution they will generate. If the government imposes a cap, it knows the amount of pollution, but polluters do not know what the price of emissions will be. Another important difference has to do with government revenue. A pollution tax is, well, a tax, which imposes costs on the private sector while generating revenue for the government. Cap and trade is a bit more complicated. If the government simply auctions off licenses and collects the revenue, then it is just like a tax. Cap and trade, however, often involves handing out licenses to existing players, so the potential revenue goes to industry instead of the government. Politically speaking, doling out licenses to industry isn’t entirely bad, because it offers a way to partly compensate some of the groups whose interests would suffer if a serious climate-change policy were adopted. This can make passing legislation more feasible. These political considerations probably explain why the solution to the acid-rain predicament took the form of cap and trade and why licenses to pollute were distributed free to power companies. It’s also worth noting that the Waxman-Markey bill, a cap-and-trade setup for greenhouse gases that starts by giving out many licenses to industry but puts up a growing number for auction in later years, was actually passed by the House of Representatives last year; it’s hard to imagine a broad-based emissions tax doing the same for many years. That’s not to say that emission taxes are a complete nonstarter. Some senators have recently floated a proposal for a sort of hybrid solution, with cap and trade for some parts of the economy and carbon taxes for others — mainly oil and gas. The political logic seems to be that the oil industry thinks consumers won’t blame it for higher gas prices if those prices reflect an explicit tax. In any case, experience suggests that market-based emission controls work. Our recent history with acid rain shows as much. The Clean Air Act ( http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/c/clean_air_ac… ) of 1990 introduced a cap-and-trade system in which power plants could buy and sell the right to emit sulfur dioxide, leaving it up to individual companies to manage their own business within the new limits. Sure enough, over time sulfur-dioxide emissions from power plants were cut almost in half, at a much lower cost than even optimists expected; electricity prices fell instead of rising. Acid rain did not disappear as a problem, but it was significantly mitigated. The results, it would seem, demonstrated that we can deal with environmental problems when we have to. So there we have it, right? The emission of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases is a classic negative externality — the “biggest market failure the world has ever seen,” in the words of Nicholas Stern, the author of a report on the subject for the British government. Textbook economics and real-world experience tell us that we should have policies to discourage activities that generate negative externalities and that it is generally best to rely on a market-based approach. Climate of Doubt? This is an article on climate economics, not climate science. But before we get to the economics, it’s worth establishing three things about the state of the scientific debate. The first is that the planet is indeed warming. Weather fluctuates, and as a consequence it’s easy enough to point to an unusually warm year in the recent past, note that it’s cooler now and claim, “See, the planet is getting cooler, not warmer!” But if you look at the evidence the right way — taking averages over periods long enough to smooth out the fluctuations — the upward trend is unmistakable: each successive decade since the 1970s has been warmer than the one before. Second, climate models predicted this well in advance, even getting the magnitude of the temperature rise roughly right. While it’s relatively easy to cook up an analysis that matches known data, it is much harder to create a model that accurately forecasts the future. So the fact that climate modelers more than 20 years ago successfully predicted the subsequent global warming gives them enormous credibility. Yet that’s not the conclusion you might draw from the many media reports that have focused on matters like hacked e-mail and climate scientists’ talking about a “trick” to “hide” an anomalous decline in one data series or expressing their wish to see papers by climate skeptics kept out of research reviews. The truth, however, is that the supposed scandals evaporate on closer examination, revealing only that climate researchers are human beings, too. Yes, scientists try to make their results stand out, but no data were suppressed. Yes, scientists dislike it when work that they think deliberately obfuscates the issues gets published. What else is new? Nothing suggests that there should not continue to be strong support for climate research. And this brings me to my third point: models based on this research indicate that if we continue adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere as we have, we will eventually face drastic changes in the climate. Let’s be clear. We’re not talking about a few more hot days in the summer and a bit less snow in the winter; we’re talking about massively disruptive events, like the transformation of the Southwestern United States into a permanent dust bowl over the next few decades. Now, despite the high credibility of climate modelers, there is still tremendous uncertainty in their long-term forecasts. But as we will see shortly, uncertainty makes the case for action stronger, not weaker. So climate change demands action. Is a cap-and-trade program along the lines of the model used to reduce sulfur dioxide the right way to go? Serious opposition to cap and trade generally comes in two forms: an argument that more direct action — in particular, a ban on coal-fired power plants — would be more effective and an argument that an emissions tax would be better than emissions trading. (Let’s leave aside those who dismiss climate science altogether and oppose any limits on greenhouse-gas emissions, as well as those who oppose the use of any kind of market-based remedy.) There’s something to each of these positions, just not as much as their proponents think. When it comes to direct action, you can make the case that economists love markets not wisely but too well, that they are too ready to assume that changing people’s financial incentives fixes every problem. In particular, you can’t put a price on something unless you can measure it accurately, and that can be both difficult and expensive. So sometimes it’s better simply to lay down some basic rules about what people can and cannot do. Consider auto emissions, for example. Could we or should we charge each car owner a fee proportional to the emissions from his or her tailpipe? Surely not. You would have to install expensive monitoring equipment on every car, and you would also have to worry about fraud. It’s almost certainly better to do what we actually do, which is impose emissions standards on all cars. Is there a comparable argument to be made for greenhouse-gas emissions? My initial reaction, which I suspect most economists would share, is that the very scale and complexity of the situation requires a market-based solution, whether cap and trade or an emissions tax. After all, greenhouse gases are a direct or indirect byproduct of almost everything produced in a modern economy, from the houses we live in to the cars we drive. Reducing emissions of those gases will require getting people to change their behavior in many different ways, some of them impossible to identify until we have a much better grasp of green technology. So can we really make meaningful progress by telling people specifically what will or will not be permitted? Econ 101 tells us — probably correctly — that the only way to get people to change their behavior appropriately is to put a price on emissions so this cost in turn gets incorporated into everything else in a way that reflects ultimate environmental impacts. When shoppers go to the grocery store, for example, they will find that fruits and vegetables from farther away have higher prices than local produce, reflecting in part the cost of emission licenses or taxes paid to ship that produce. When businesses decide how much to spend on insulation, they will take into account the costs of heating and air-conditioning that include the price of emissions licenses or taxes for electricity generation. When electric utilities have to choose among energy sources, they will have to take into account the higher license fees or taxes associated with fossil-fuel consumption. And so on down the line. A market-based system would create decentralized incentives to do the right thing, and that’s the only way it can be done. That said, some specific rules may be required. James Hansen ( http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/h/james_e_hansen… ), the renowned climate scientist who deserves much of the credit for making global warming an issue in the first place, has argued forcefully that most of the climate-change problem comes down to just one thing, burning coal, and that whatever else we do, we have to shut down coal burning over the next couple decades. My economist’s reaction is that a stiff license fee would strongly discourage coal use anyway. But a market-based system might turn out to have loopholes — and their consequences could be dire. So I would advocate supplementing market-based disincentives with direct controls on coal burning. What about the case for an emissions tax rather than cap and trade? There’s no question that a straightforward tax would have many advantages over legislation like Waxman-Markey, which is full of exceptions and special situations. But that’s not really a useful comparison: of course an idealized emissions tax looks better than a cap-and-trade system that has already passed the House with all its attendant compromises. The question is whether the emissions tax that could actually be put in place is better than cap and trade. There is no reason to believe that it would be — indeed, there is no reason to believe that a broad-based emissions tax would make it through Congress. To be fair, Hansen has made an interesting moral argument against cap and trade, one that’s much more sophisticated than the old view that it’s wrong to let polluters buy the right to pollute. What Hansen draws attention to is the fact that in a cap-and-trade world, acts of individual virtue do not contribute to social goals. If you choose to drive a hybrid car or buy a house with a small carbon footprint, all you are doing is freeing up emissions permits for someone else, which means that you have done nothing to reduce the threat of climate change. He has a point. But altruism cannot effectively deal with climate change. Any serious solution must rely mainly on creating a system that gives everyone a self-interested reason to produce fewer emissions. It’s a shame, but climate altruism must take a back seat to the task of getting such a system in place. The bottom line, then, is that while climate change may be a vastly bigger problem than acid rain, the logic of how to respond to it is much the same. What we need are market incentives for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions — along with some direct controls over coal use — and cap and trade is a reasonable way to create those incentives. But can we afford to do that? Equally important, can we afford not to? The Cost of Action Just as there is a rough consensus among climate modelers about the likely trajectory of temperatures if we do not act to cut the emissions of greenhouse gases, there is a rough consensus among economic modelers about the costs of action. That general opinion may be summed up as follows: Restricting emissions would slow economic growth — but not by much. The Congressional Budget Office ( http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/c/congres… ), relying on a survey of models, has concluded that Waxman-Markey “would reduce the projected average annual rate of growth of gross domestic product ( http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/u/united_state… ) between 2010 and 2050 by 0.03 to 0.09 percentage points.” That is, it would trim average annual growth to 2.31 percent, at worst, from 2.4 percent. Over all, the Budget Office concludes, strong climate-change policy would leave the American economy between 1.1 percent and 3.4 percent smaller in 2050 than it would be otherwise. And what about the world economy? In general, modelers tend to find that climate-change policies would lower global output by a somewhat smaller percentage than the comparable figures for the United States. The main reason is that emerging economies like China currently use energy fairly inefficiently, partly as a result of national policies that have kept the prices of fossil fuels very low, and could thus achieve large energy savings at a modest cost. One recent review of the available estimates put the costs of a very strong climate policy — substantially more aggressive than contemplated in current legislative proposals — at between 1 and 3 percent of gross world product. Such figures typically come from a model that combines all sorts of engineering and marketplace estimates. These will include, for instance, engineers’ best calculations of how much it costs to generate electricity in various ways, from coal, gas and nuclear and solar power ( http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/science/topics/solar_energy/index.html?i… ) at given resource prices. Then estimates will be made, based on historical experience, of how much consumers would cut back their electricity consumption if its price rises. The same process is followed for other kinds of energy, like motor fuel. And the model assumes that everyone makes the best choice given the economic environment — that power generators choose the least expensive means of producing electricity, while consumers conserve energy as long as the money saved by buying less electricity exceeds the cost of using less power in the form either of other spending or loss of convenience. After all this analysis, it’s possible to predict how producers and consumers of energy will react to policies that put a price on emissions and how much those reactions will end up costing the economy as a whole. There are, of course, a number of ways this kind of modeling could be wrong. Many of the underlying estimates are necessarily somewhat speculative; nobody really knows, for instance, what solar power will cost once it finally becomes a large-scale proposition. There is also reason to doubt the assumption that people actually make the right choices: many studies have found that consumers fail to take measures to conserve energy, like improving insulation, even when they could save money by doing so. But while it’s unlikely that these models get everything right, it’s a good bet that they overstate rather than understate the economic costs of climate-change action. That is what the experience from the cap-and-trade program for acid rain suggests: costs came in well below initial predictions. And in general, what the models do not and cannot take into account is creativity; surely, faced with an economy in which there are big monetary payoffs for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions, the private sector will come up with ways to limit emissions that are not yet in any model. What you hear from conservative opponents of a climate-change policy, however, is that any attempt to limit emissions would be economically devastating. The Heritage Foundation ( http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/h/heritag… ), for one, responded to Budget Office estimates on Waxman-Markey with a broadside titled, “C.B.O. Grossly Underestimates Costs of Cap and Trade.” The real effects, the foundation said, would be ruinous for families and job creation. This reaction — this extreme pessimism about the economy’s ability to live with cap and trade — is very much at odds with typical conservative rhetoric. After all, modern conservatives express a deep, almost mystical confidence in the effectiveness of market incentives — Ronald Reagan ( http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/r/ronald_wilson_… ) liked to talk about the “magic of the marketplace.” They believe that the capitalist system can deal with all kinds of limitations, that technology, say, can easily overcome any constraints on growth posed by limited reserves of oil or other natural resources. And yet now they submit that this same private sector is utterly incapable of coping with a limit on overall emissions, even though such a cap would, from the private sector’s point of view, operate very much like a limited supply of a resource, like land. Why don’t they believe that the dynamism of capitalism will spur it to find ways to make do in a world of reduced carbon emissions? Why do they think the marketplace loses its magic as soon as market incentives are invoked in favor of conservation? Clearly, conservatives abandon all faith in the ability of markets to cope with climate-change policy because they don’t want government intervention. Their stated pessimism about the cost of climate policy is essentially a political ploy rather than a reasoned economic judgment. The giveaway is the strong tendency of conservative opponents of cap and trade to argue in bad faith. That Heritage Foundation broadside accuses the Congressional Budget Office of making elementary logical errors, but if you actually read the office’s report, it’s clear that the foundation is willfully misreading it. Conservative politicians have been even more shameless. The National Republican Congressional Committee, for example, issued multiple press releases specifically citing a study from M.I.T. ( http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/m/massach… ) as the basis for a claim that cap and trade would cost $3,100 per household, despite repeated attempts by the study’s authors to get out the word that the actual number was only about a quarter as much. The truth is that there is no credible research suggesting that taking strong action on climate change is beyond the economy’s capacity. Even if you do not fully trust the models — and you shouldn’t — history and logic both suggest that the models are overestimating, not underestimating, the costs of climate action. We can afford to do something about climate change. But that’s not the same as saying we should. Action will have costs, and these must be compared with the costs of not acting. Before I get to that, however, let me touch on an issue that will become central if we actually do get moving on climate policy: how to get the rest of the world to go along with us. The China Syndrome The United States is still the world’s largest economy, which makes the country one of the world’s largest sources of greenhouse gases. But it’s not the largest. China, which burns much more coal per dollar of gross domestic product than the United States does, overtook us by that measure around three years ago. Over all, the advanced countries — the rich man’s club comprising Europe, North America and Japan — account for only about half of greenhouse emissions, and that’s a fraction that will fall over time. In short, there can’t be a solution to climate change unless the rest of the world, emerging economies in particular, participates in a major way. Inevitably those who resist tackling climate change point to the global nature of emissions as a reason not to act. Emissions limits in America won’t accomplish much, they argue, if China and others don’t match our effort. And they highlight China’s obduracy in the Copenhagen negotiations as evidence that other countries will not cooperate. Indeed, emerging economies feel that they have a right to emit freely without worrying about the consequences — that’s what today’s rich countries got to do for two centuries. It’s just not possible to get global cooperation on climate change, goes the argument, and that means there is no point in taking any action at all. For those who think that taking action is essential, the right question is how to persuade China and other emerging nations to participate in emissions limits. Carrots, or positive inducements, are one answer. Imagine setting up cap-and-trade systems in China and the United States — but allow international trading in permits, so Chinese and American companies can trade emission rights. By setting overall caps at levels designed to ensure that China sells us a substantial number of permits, we would in effect be paying China to cut its emissions. Since the evidence suggests that the cost of cutting emissions would be lower in China than in the United States, this could be a good deal for everyone. But what if the Chinese (or the Indians or the Brazilians, etc.) do not want to participate in such a system? Then you need sticks as well as carrots. In particular, you need carbon tariffs. A carbon tariff would be a tax levied on imported goods proportional to the carbon emitted in the manufacture of those goods. Suppose that China refuses to reduce emissions, while the United States adopts policies that set a price of $100 per ton of carbon emissions. If the United States were to impose such a carbon tariff, any shipment to America of Chinese goods whose production involved emitting a ton of carbon would result in a $100 tax over and above any other duties. Such tariffs, if levied by major players — probably the United States and the European Union ( http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/e/europea… ) — would give noncooperating countries a strong incentive to reconsider their positions. To the objection that such a policy would be protectionist ( http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/p/protectionis… ), a violation of the principles of free trade, one reply is, So? Keeping world markets open is important, but avoiding planetary catastrophe is a lot more important. In any case, however, you can argue that carbon tariffs are well within the rules of normal trade relations. As long as the tariff imposed on the carbon content of imports is comparable to the cost of domestic carbon licenses, the effect is to charge your own consumers a price that reflects the carbon emitted in what they buy, no matter where it is produced. That should be legal under international-trading rules. In fact, even the World Trade Organization ( http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/w/world_t… ), which is charged with policing trade policies, has published a study suggesting that carbon tariffs would pass muster. Needless to say, the actual business of getting cooperative, worldwide action on climate change would be much more complicated and tendentious than this discussion suggests. Yet the problem is not as intractable as you often hear. If the United States and Europe decide to move on climate policy, they almost certainly would be able to cajole and chivvy the rest of the world into joining the effort. We can do this. The Costs of Inaction In public discussion, the climate-change skeptics have clearly been gaining ground over the past couple of years, even though the odds have been looking good lately that 2010 could be the warmest year on record. But climate modelers themselves have grown increasingly pessimistic. What were previously worst-case scenarios have become base-line projections, with a number of organizations doubling their predictions for temperature rise over the course of the 21st century. Underlying this new pessimism is increased concern about feedback effects — for example, the release of methane, a significant greenhouse gas, from seabeds and tundra as the planet warms. At this point, the projections of climate change, assuming we continue business as usual, cluster around an estimate that average temperatures will be about 9 degrees Fahrenheit higher in 2100 than they were in 2000. That’s a lot — equivalent to the difference in average temperatures between New York and central Mississippi. Such a huge change would have to be highly disruptive. And the troubles would not stop there: temperatures would continue to rise. Furthermore, changes in average temperature will by no means be the whole story. Precipitation patterns will change, with some regions getting much wetter and others much drier. Many modelers also predict more intense storms. Sea levels would rise, with the impact intensified by those storms: coastal flooding, already a major source of natural disasters, would become much more frequent and severe. And there might be drastic changes in the climate of some regions as ocean currents shift. It’s always worth bearing in mind that London is at the same latitude as Labrador; without the Gulf Stream, Western Europe would be barely habitable. While there may be some benefits from a warmer climate, it seems almost certain that upheaval on this scale would make the United States, and the world as a whole, poorer than it would be otherwise. How much poorer? If ours were a preindustrial, primarily agricultural society, extreme climate change would be obviously catastrophic. But we have an advanced economy, the kind that has historically shown great ability to adapt to changed circumstances. If this sounds similar to my argument that the costs of emissions limits would be tolerable, it ought to: the same flexibility that should enable us to deal with a much higher carbon prices should also help us cope with a somewhat higher average temperature. But there are at least two reasons to take sanguine assessments of the consequences of climate change with a grain of salt. One is that, as I have just pointed out, it’s not just a matter of having warmer weather — many of the costs of climate change are likely to result from droughts, flooding and severe storms. The other is that while modern economies may be highly adaptable, the same may not be true of ecosystems. The last time the earth experienced warming at anything like the pace we now expect was during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, about 55 million years ago, when temperatures rose by about 11 degrees Fahrenheit over the course of around 20,000 years (which is a much slower rate than the current pace of warming). That increase was associated with mass extinctions, which, to put it mildly, probably would not be good for living standards. So how can we put a price tag on the effects of global warming? The most widely quoted estimates, like those in the Dynamic Integrated Model of Climate and the Economy, known as DICE, used by Yale’s William Nordhaus and colleagues, depend upon educated guesswork to place a value on the negative effects of global warming in a number of crucial areas, especially agriculture and coastal protection, then try to make some allowance for other possible repercussions. Nordhaus has argued that a global temperature rise of 4.5 degrees Fahrenheit — which used to be the consensus projection for 2100 — would reduce gross world product by a bit less than 2 percent. But what would happen if, as a growing number of models suggest, the actual temperature rise is twice as great? Nobody really knows how to make that extrapolation. For what it’s worth, Nordhaus’s model puts losses from a rise of 9 degrees at about 5 percent of gross world product. Many critics have argued, however, that the cost might be much higher. Despite the uncertainty, it’s tempting to make a direct comparison between the estimated losses and the estimates of what the mitigation policies will cost: climate change will lower gross world product by 5 percent, stopping it will cost 2 percent, so let’s go ahead. Unfortunately the reckoning is not that simple for at least four reasons. First, substantial global warming is already “baked in,” as a result of past emissions and because even with a strong climate-change policy the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is most likely to continue rising for many years. So even if the nations of the world do manage to take on climate change, we will still have to pay for earlier inaction. As a result, Nordhaus’s loss estimates may overstate the gains from action. Second, the economic costs from emissions limits would start as soon as the policy went into effect and under most proposals would become substantial within around 20 years. If we don’t act, meanwhile, the big costs would probably come late this century (although some things, like the transformation of the American Southwest into a dust bowl, might come much sooner). So how you compare those costs depends on how much you value costs in the distant future relative to costs that materialize much sooner. Third, and cutting in the opposite direction, if we don’t take action, global warming won’t stop in 2100: temperatures, and losses, will continue to rise. So if you place a significant weight on the really, really distant future, the case for action is stronger than even the 2100 estimates suggest. Finally and most important is the matter of uncertainty. We’re uncertain about the magnitude of climate change, which is inevitable, because we’re talking about reaching levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere not seen in millions of years. The recent doubling of many modelers’ predictions for 2100 is itself an illustration of the scope of that uncertainty; who knows what revisions may occur in the years ahead. Beyond that, nobody really knows how much damage would result from temperature rises of the kind now considered likely. You might think that this uncertainty weakens the case for action, but it actually strengthens it. As Harvard ( http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/h/harvard… )’s Martin Weitzman has argued in several influential papers, if there is a significant chance of utter catastrophe, that chance — rather than what is most likely to happen — should dominate cost-benefit calculations. And utter catastrophe does look like a realistic possibility, even if it is not the most likely outcome. Weitzman argues — and I agree — that this risk of catastrophe, rather than the details of cost-benefit calculations, makes the most powerful case for strong climate policy. Current projections of global warming in the absence of action are just too close to the kinds of numbers associated with doomsday scenarios. It would be irresponsible — it’s tempting to say criminally irresponsible — not to step back from what could all too easily turn out to be the edge of a cliff. Still that leaves a big debate about the pace of action. The Ramp Versus the Big Bang Economists who analyze climate policies agree on some key issues. There is a broad consensus that we need to put a price on carbon emissions, that this price must eventually be very high but that the negative economic effects from this policy will be of manageable size. In other words, we can and should act to limit climate change. But there is a ferocious debate among knowledgeable analysts about timing, about how fast carbon prices should rise to significant levels. On one side are economists who have been working for many years on so-called integrated-assessment models, which combine models of climate change with models of both the damage from global warming and the costs of cutting emissions. For the most part, the message from these economists is a sort of climate version of St. Augustine’s famous prayer, “Give me chastity and continence, but not just now.” Thus Nordhaus’s DICE model says that the price of carbon emissions should eventually rise to more than $200 a ton, effectively more than quadrupling the cost of coal, but that most of that increase should come late this century, with a much more modest initial fee of around $30 a ton. Nordhaus calls this recommendation for a policy that builds gradually over a long period the “climate-policy ramp.” On the other side are some more recent entrants to the field, who work with similar models but come to different conclusions. Most famously, Nicholas Stern, an economist at the London School of Economics, argued in 2006 for quick, aggressive action to limit emissions, which would most likely imply much higher carbon prices. This alternative position doesn’t appear to have a standard name, so let me call it the “climate-policy big bang.” I find it easiest to make sense of the arguments by thinking of policies to reduce carbon emissions as a sort of public investment project: you pay a price now and derive benefits in the form of a less-damaged planet later. And by later, I mean much later; today’s emissions will affect the amount of carbon in the atmosphere decades, and possibly centuries, into the future. So if you want to assess whether a given investment in emissions reduction is worth making, you have to estimate the damage that an additional ton of carbon in the atmosphere will do, not just this year but for a century or more to come; and you also have to decide how much weight to place on harm that will take a very long time to materialize. The policy-ramp advocates argue that the damage done by an additional ton of carbon in the atmosphere is fairly low at current concentrations; the cost will not get really large until there is a lot more carbon dioxide in the air, and that won’t happen until late this century. And they argue that costs that far in the future should not have a large influence on policy today. They point to market rates of return, which indicate that investors place only a small weight on the gains or losses they expect in the distant future, and argue that public policies, including climate policies, should do the same. The big-bang advocates argue that government should take a much longer view than private investors. Stern, in particular, argues that policy makers should give the same weight to future generations’ welfare as we give to those now living. Moreover, the proponents of fast action hold that the damage from emissions may be much larger than the policy-ramp analyses suggest, either because global temperatures are more sensitive to greenhouse-gas emissions than previously thought or because the economic damage from a large rise in temperatures is much greater than the guesstimates in the climate-ramp models. As a professional economist, I find this debate painful. There are smart, well-intentioned people on both sides — some of them, as it happens, old friends and mentors of mine — and each side has scored some major points. Unfortunately, we can’t just declare it an honorable draw, because there’s a decision to be made. Personally, I lean toward the big-bang view. Stern’s moral argument for loving unborn generations as we love ourselves may be too strong, but there’s a compelling case to be made that public policy should take a much longer view than private markets. Even more important, the policy-ramp prescriptions seem far too much like conducting a very risky experiment with the whole planet. Nordhaus’s preferred policy, for example, would stabilize the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere at a level about twice its preindustrial average. In his model, this would have only modest effects on global welfare; but how confident can we be of that? How sure are we that this kind of change in the environment would not lead to catastrophe? Not sure enough, I’d say, particularly because, as noted above, climate modelers have sharply raised their estimates of future warming in just the last couple of years. So what I end up with is basically Martin Weitzman’s argument: it’s the nonnegligible probability of utter disaster that should dominate our policy analysis. And that argues for aggressive moves to curb emissions, soon. The Political Atmosphere As I’ve mentioned, the House has already passed Waxman-Markey, a fairly strong bill aimed at reducing greenhouse-gas emissions. It’s not as strong as what the big-bang advocates propose, but it appears to move faster than the policy-ramp proposals. But the vote on Waxman-Markey, which was taken last June, revealed a starkly divided Congress. Only 8 Republicans voted in favor of it, while 44 Democrats voted against. And the odds are that it would not pass if it were brought up for a vote today. Prospects in the Senate, where it takes 60 votes to get most legislation through, are even worse. A number of Democratic senators, representing energy-producing and agricultural states, have come out against cap and trade (modern American agriculture is strongly energy-intensive). In the past, some Republican senators have supported cap and trade. But with partisanship on the rise, most of them have been changing their tune. The most striking about-face has come from John McCain ( http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/m/john_mccain/in… ), who played a leading role in promoting cap and trade, introducing a bill broadly similar to Waxman-Markey in 2003. Today McCain lambastes the whole idea as “cap and tax,” to the dismay of former aides. Oh, and a snowy winter on the East Coast of the U.S. has given climate skeptics a field day, even though globally this has been one of the warmest winters on record. So the immediate prospects for climate action do not look promising, despite an ongoing effort by three senators — John Kerry ( http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/k/john_kerry/ind… ), Joseph Lieberman ( http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/l/joseph_i_liebe… ) and Lindsey Graham ( http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/g/lindsey_graham… ) — to come up with a compromise proposal. (They plan to introduce legislation later this month.) Yet the issue isn’t going away. There’s a pretty good chance that the record temperatures the world outside Washington has seen so far this year will continue, depriving climate skeptics of one of their main talking points. And in a more general sense, given the twists and turns of American politics in recent years — since 2005 the conventional wisdom has gone from permanent Republican domination to permanent Democratic domination to God knows what — there has to be a real chance that political support for action on climate change will revive. If it does, the economic analysis will be ready. We know how to limit greenhouse-gas emissions. We have a good sense of the costs — and they’re manageable. All we need now is the political will. Paul Krugman is a Times columnist and winner of the 2008 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science. His latest book is “The Return of Depression Economics and the Crisis of 2008.”

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Fwd: WVNS story: "Something Fishy" At Mine Where 29 Died
by Paul Wilson 13 Apr '10

13 Apr '10

fyi, paul w. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Public News Service <wvns(a)newsservice.org> Date: Tue, Apr 13, 2010 at 4:03 AM Subject: WVNS story: "Something Fishy" At Mine Where 29 Died To: PaulWilson <pjgrunt(a)gmail.com> Public News Service-WV April 13, 2010 "Something Fishy" At Mine Where 29 Died CHARLESTON, W.Va. -Federal mine safety officials say explosions like the one that killed 29 West Virginia miners last week are completely preventable. Such things shouldn't happen, they say. And congressman Nick Rahall, whose district includes Montcoal, says the record at Massey Energy's Upper Big Branch Coal Mine there smells. "Doesn't take a rocket scientist to determine by looking at all the violations that have been issued here that something was wrong, something was fishy here. That's clear by the whole public record." The Secretary-Treasurer of the West Virginia *AFL-CIO*, Larry Matheney, says one problem is that miners don't complain about safety for fear of losing their jobs. "It's the economy and high unemployment, particularly in the coal fields; miners' economic survival, their families versus personal safety, putting their lives at risk." Early indications suggest that methane built up in the mine and ignited. An investigation by the Charleston Gazette suggests that parts of the mine might have been shut down, except that Massey aggressively fought regulators' efforts to close off unsafe areas. Massey contends those violations had nothing to do with the accident. Click here to view this story on the Public News Service RSS site and access an audio version of this and other stories: http://www.publicnewsservice.org/index.php?/content/article/13438-1<http://www.publicnewsservice.org/index.php?/content/article/13438-1> --- To be removed from this list please send an e-mail to remove(a)publicnewsservice.org <remove(a)publicnewsservice.org?subject=remove>and put the word "remove" in the subject line. -- Paul Wilson Sierra Club 504 Jefferson Ave Charles Town, WV 25414-1130 Phone: 304-725-4360 Cell: 304-279-1361 "There is no forward until you have gone back" ~Buddha "In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous" ~ Aristotle

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NY Times Editorial: Mourning in the Mountains
by Paul Wilson 10 Apr '10

10 Apr '10

April 7, 2010 NY Times Op-Ed Contributor Mourning in the Mountains By DENISE GIARDINA Charleston, W.Va. PEOPLE in West Virginia had hoped that on Monday night we would gather around televisions with family and friends to watch our beloved Mountaineers face Butler in our first chance at the men’s N.C.A.A. basketball title since 1959. Men working evening shifts in the coal mines would get to listen thanks to radio coverage piped in from the surface. Expectations ran high; even President Obama, surveying the Final Four, predicted West Virginia would win. Then, on Tuesday morning, we would wake to triumphant headlines in sports pages across the country. At last, we would say, something good has happened to West Virginia. The whole nation would see us in a new light. And we would cry. Instead, halfway through Saturday night’s semifinal against Duke, our star forward, Da’Sean Butler, tore a ligament in his knee, and the Mountaineers crumbled. And on Monday evening, while Duke and Butler played in what for us was now merely a game, West Virginians gathered around televisions to watch news of a coal mine disaster<http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/07/us/07westvirginia.html?ref=us> . On Tuesday, the headline in The Charleston Gazette read instead: Miners Dead, Missing in Raleigh Explosion. And we cried. Despite the sunny skies and unseasonably warm weather, the mood here in southern West Virginia is subdued. As of Tuesday afternoon, 25 men have been confirmed dead, two are critically injured, and four are missing and presumed dead. Their fellow West Virginians work round the clock and risk their own lives to retrieve the bodies. Already outrage is focused on Massey Energy, owner of the Upper Big Branch mine. Massey has a history of negligence, and Upper Big Branch has often been cited in recent years for problems, including failure to properly vent methane gas, which officials say might have been the cause of Monday’s explosion. It seems we can’t escape our heritage. I grew up in a coal camp in the southern part of the state. Every day my school bus drove past a sign posted by the local coal company keeping tally, like a basketball scoreboard, of “man hours” lost to accidents. From time to time classmates whose fathers had been killed or maimed would disappear, their families gone elsewhere to seek work. We knew then, and know now, that we are a national sacrifice area. We mine coal despite the danger to miners, the damage to the environment and the monomaniacal control of an industry that keeps economic diversity from flourishing here. We do it because America says it needs the coal we provide. West Virginians get little thanks in return. Our miners have historically received little protection, and our politicians remain subservient to Big Coal. Meanwhile, West Virginia is either ignored by the rest of the nation or is the butt of jokes about ignorant hillbillies. Here in West Virginia we will forget our fleeting dream of basketball glory and get about the business of mourning. It is, after all, something we do very well. In the area around the Upper Big Branch, families of the dead will gather in churches and their neighbors will come to pray with them. They will go home, and the same neighbors will show up bearing platters of fried chicken and potato salad and cakes. The funeral homes will be jammed, the mourners in their best suits and ties and Sunday dresses. And perhaps this time President Obama and Americans will pay attention, and notice West Virginia at last. Denise Giardina is the writer-in-residence at West Virginia State University. -- Paul Wilson Sierra Club 504 Jefferson Ave Charles Town, WV 25414-1130 Phone: 304-725-4360 Cell: 304-279-1361 "There is no forward until you have gone back" ~Buddha "In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous" ~ Aristotle

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Good Jobs Green Jobs conference
by Jim Sconyers 08 Apr '10

08 Apr '10

Anybody interested? Jim Sconyers jim_scon(a)yahoo.com 304.698.9628 Remember: Mother Nature bats last. --- On Thu, 4/8/10, Scott Elkins <scott.elkins(a)sierraclub.org> wrote: From: Scott Elkins <scott.elkins(a)sierraclub.org> Subject: Last minute request To: "'Jim Sconyers'" <jim_scon(a)yahoo.com> Date: Thursday, April 8, 2010, 3:51 PM Jim: This is last minute, but I’m wondering if you can identify 2-4 chapter folks from West Virginia who would be interested in attending the Good Jobs, Green Jobs Conference in Washington DC , May 4-6. The Club can cover travel and lodging costs for up to four chapter folks from West Virginia , but the trick is that we need to get the folks identified and signed up by Monday, April 19th. Also, we want the folks to be willing to commit to three things at and after the event: • Participate in the conference Advocacy Day on May 6, spending a full day participating in meetings with U.S. Representatives and Senators to discuss green jobs. • Expand our on-the-ground relationships with labor, by recording your existing labor contacts on the conference registration form and, by using the conference as a networking opportunity, expanding your local connections. • Post-GJGJ Collaboration: Commit to pursuing one or more follow up initiatives or activities with your local contacts, and to report on them in a follow-up survey, approximately two months after the conference. If you can identify some folks in West Virginia who are game for this, please have them sign up at this web address http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dGxjUThyWDJ5M0FfMXZiRUNRamo…. After they sign up, one of our staff in DC will get in touch with them about arranging travel and hotel. If you can help out with this, Jim, I’d appreciate it. If you’re too busy but know of someone else in the chapter who may be able to help recruit for this, that would be great too. Thanks, Scott Scott Elkins Director for Chapter Coordination - Climate Recovery Campaign Sierra Club 2327 E Franklin Ave Minneapolis MN 55406 tel. 612-659-9124 fax 612-659-9129 cell 612-720-0793

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Fwd: Fw: WaPo: Massey Energy has litany of critics, violations
by Paul Wilson 07 Apr '10

07 Apr '10

fyi, in case you don't get the Washington comPost. paul ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Bruce Hamilton <Bruce.Hamilton(a)sierraclub.org> Date: Tue, Apr 6, 2010 at 2:14 PM Subject: Fw: WaPo: Massey Energy has litany of critics, violations To: pjgrunt(a)gmail.com ----- Forwarded by Bruce Hamilton/Sierraclub on 04/06/2010 11:14 AM ----- From: Josh Dorner/Sierraclub To: #Coal, #Media, #conservation-carbon Date: 04/06/2010 11:07 AM Subject: WaPo: Massey Energy has litany of critics, violations ------------------------------ We are of course still confining any public comments to our concerns about the miners and their families; however, it hasn't taken reporters too long to uncover all of Massey's problems--including more than 50 safety violations *last month* at the mine where the accident occurred. *Massey Energy has litany of critics, violations* By Steven Mufson Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, April 6, 2010; 1:47 PM *Massey Energy*<http://financial.washingtonpost.com/custom/wpost/html-qcn.asp?dispnav=busin…>, owner of the coal mine where at least *25 miners died this week*<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/05/AR201004050…>, and its outspoken chief executive, Don Blankenship, have long been lightning rods for critics of the coal industry. And although the company says that its safety record is better than the industry average, Massey has frequently been cited for safety violations, including about 50 citations at the Upper Big Branch mine in March alone. Many of those 50 citations were for poor ventilation of dust and methane, failure to maintain proper escape ways, and the accumulation of combustible materials. The U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration cited the mine for 1,342 safety violations from 2005 through Monday for a total of $1.89 million in proposed fines, according to federal records. The company has contested 422 of those violations, totaling $742,830 in proposed penalties, according to federal officials. Blankenship has called congressional Democrats seeking climate change legislation "greeniacs" and "all crazy." He's said, "I don't believe that climate change is real," and that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) "don't know what they're talking about." And in a video promoting a Labor Day music and political event last year, he said, "We're going to have Hank Williams and a very good time, but we're also going to learn how environmental extremists and corporate America are both trying to destroy your job." He has also thrown his weight around West Virginia, shelling out more than $3 million of his own money for ads to help defeat a West Virginia state Supreme Court justice. Blankenship expected the justice to rule against Massey in an appeal of a $50 million award for a small coal company owner, who convinced a jury that Massey had driven his company into bankruptcy. The new judge cast the deciding vote against the $50 million award. The U.S. Supreme Court later ruled that the new judge should have recused himself. As a director of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Blankenship has helped buttress the chamber's tough position against a climate change bill that many other corporate members support. In November, he donated $30,400 to the National Republican Senatorial Committee. Blankenship is also a longtime foe of unions, earning the enmity of union leaders. The mine where the accident took place Monday is a nonunion mine. Although environmental groups have been working to stop the construction of new coal-fired power plants in order to stop the increase in greenhouse gases, coal continues to play a major role in the nation's energy picture. A little less than half of electricity in the United States is generated by coal-fired plants. And coal is also used by much of U.S. industry for power needs. News of the mine disaster pummeled the stock of Massey, the nation's fourth largest coal company. At 1:30 p.m., the company's stock was down more than 10 percent, erasing more than $400 million of market value. Massey, which is headquartered in Richmond, has operations in West Virginia, Kentucky and Virginia and is the largest coal producer in Central Appalachia. The company boasts on its *Web site* <http://www.masseyenergyco.com/> that it has a good safety record compared with the rest of the industry. "In 2009, Massey recorded an all-time best NFDL incident rate (a measure of lost-time accidents) of 1.67," the site says. "This is an improvement over last year's rate of 1.93, our previous best result. By comparison, the bituminous coal mining industry average NFDL rate was 2.95 in 2008. 2009 marked the 6th consecutive year and the 17th year out of the past 20 years in which Massey's safety performance was stronger than the industry average." But the company had a litany of violations just last month at the Upper Big Branch mine, according to the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration Web site. In March, U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration officials cited the mine, which is owned by Massey subsidiary Performance Coal Co., for failing to control dust; improperly planning to ventilate the mine of dust and the combustible gas methane; inadequate protection from roof falls; failing to maintain proper escapeways; and allowing the accumulation of combustible materials." Mining companies are permitted to contest violations and proposed penalties and safety violations are not placed on a company's permanent safety record until a dispute is settled, officials said. The 2006 MINER Act in the wake of the 2006 Sago Mine disaster bolstered the agency's inspection staff and increased penalties for safety violations. The change in law has led to a higher number of citations and penalties and more challenges by companies, federal mine safety officials said. The Associated Press reports that "in seven of the last 10 years, the mine has recorded a non-fatal injury rate worse than the national average for similar operations, according to MSHA statistics. One miner was killed at the operation in a July 2003 electrical accident and another in a March 2001 roof fall, according to MSHA records." Blankenship has a *Twitter feed* <http://twitter.com/DonBlankenship>, but he has not written anything about the accident and has not updated the feed in the past week. On March 26, he posted a link to a list of senators who he said "support higher taxes, higher electric bills and fewer American jobs." Earlier that day, he wrote: "New study in Geophysical Research Letters finds strong winds cause ice loss in Arctic Those full of hot air like Gore should avoid the Arctic." *Staff reporter Ed O'Keefe and research director Lucy Shackelford contributed to this report.* ----------------- Josh Dorner Sierra Club tel 202.675.2384 cel 202.679.7570 -- Paul Wilson Sierra Club 504 Jefferson Ave Charles Town, WV 25414-1130 Phone: 304-725-4360 Cell: 304-279-1361 "There is no forward until you have gone back" ~Buddha "In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous" ~ Aristotle

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Fwd: Fw: Agenda for April 22-23 EIPC Stakeholder meeting
by Paul Wilson 07 Apr '10

07 Apr '10

fyi, paul ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Elena Saxonhouse <Elena.Saxonhouse(a)sierraclub.org> Date: Tue, Apr 6, 2010 at 12:54 PM Subject: Fw: Agenda for April 22-23 EIPC Stakeholder meeting To: CONS-ELP-TRANS-LINES-FORUM(a)lists.sierraclub.org ----- Forwarded by Elena Saxonhouse/Sierraclub on 04/06/2010 09:54 AM ----- From: <eipconline(a)keystone.org> To: <eipconline(a)keystone.org> Date: 04/06/2010 09:46 AM Subject: Agenda for April 22-23 EIPC Stakeholder meeting Sent by: eipclist-bounces(a)keystone.org ------------------------------ [image: Text Box: Comments on the EIPC straw proposal for the Stakeholder Steering Committee (SSC) and the agenda for the Eastern Interconnection-wide stakeholder meeting on Thurs. and Fri., April 22-23, in St. Louis, Missouri have been posted at http://eipconline.com/document_library.php. To attend the meeting you must register by April 14th, by completing the information at: http://www.zoomerang.com/Survey/WEB22AE6SFFYEB. All attendees must make their own travel arrangements. The information about the hotel and room block is provided when you register (and there is no confirmation email, so please print out the page when you complete the survey). We strongly encourage everyone to attend in person and to send individuals who can speak on behalf of their organization. Decisions about the structure and selection process for the SSC will be made at this meeting. Stakeholders who cannot attend will have remote access to the meeting through a webinar link to the plenary sessions and a conference call number for discussions that occur in breakout sessions. These will be sent out in a future email. If you have further questions about the meeting logistics or would like to unsubscribe from this list, please contact Eileen at Emiller(a)keystone.org. Other questions should be directed to dwhiteley(a)eipconline.com or cmorris(a)keystone.org.] _______________________________________________ EIPClist mailing list EIPClist(a)keystone.org http://keystone.org/mailman/listinfo/eipclist_keystone.org - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - To unsubscribe from the CONS-ELP-TRANS-LINES-FORUM list, send any message to: CONS-ELP-TRANS-LINES-FORUM-signoff-request(a)LISTS.SIERRACLUB.ORG Check out our Listserv Lists support site for more information: http://www.sierraclub.org/lists/faq.asp To view the Sierra Club List Terms & Conditions, see: http://www.sierraclub.org/lists/terms.asp -- Paul Wilson Sierra Club 504 Jefferson Ave Charles Town, WV 25414-1130 Phone: 304-725-4360 Cell: 304-279-1361 "There is no forward until you have gone back" ~Buddha "In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous" ~ Aristotle

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Re: [EC] Selenium compliance extensions
by Jim Sconyers 02 Apr '10

02 Apr '10

I'm trying not to float off on a cloud of euphoria - Spruce veto, end of valley fills, appeal of Mingo CTL, ..... Reality bites: gotta wait and see what actually changes. Jim Sconyers jim_scon(a)yahoo.com 304.698.9628 Remember: Mother Nature bats last. --- On Fri, 4/2/10, clrank(a)hughes.net <clrank(a)hughes.net> wrote: From: clrank(a)hughes.net <clrank(a)hughes.net> Subject: Re: Selenium compliance extensions To: dteaney(a)appalachian-center.org Cc: jlovett(a)appalachian-center.org, JHECKER(a)publicjustice.net, mjanes(a)hardynet.com, aaron.isherwood(a)sierraclub.org, jim_scon(a)yahoo.com, dbady.ovec(a)gmail.com, janet.ovec(a)gmail.com, vernoncrmw(a)gmail.com, vivian(a)ohvec.org Date: Friday, April 2, 2010, 10:58 AM You write: "This is good news. It has been a good week. I hope everyone has a great weekend." Wonderful to have cause to make those statements.....Maybe you should date it, frame it and hang it on your wall. ... i might --- just as a reminder that all things are possible - if only for the briefest of moments. Cindy __________________ On Apr 2, 2010, Derek Teaney <dteaney(a)appalachian-center.org> wrote: All – EPA Region III just informed me that they issued general objections to all pending selenium compliance schedule extensions. The legal effect is to extend EPA’s time to provide specific comments for 90 days. The practical effect is to cause serious anti-backsliding issues because DEP was unable to issue the extensions prior to the final compliance deadline of April 5, 2010. This is good news. It has been a good week. I hope everyone has a great weekend. Cheers, Derek Derek Teaney Senior Attorney Appalachian Center for the Economy and the Environment P.O. Box 507 Lewisburg, WV 24901 Phone (304) 793-9007 Fax (304) 645-9008 dteaney(a)appalachian-center.org INFORMATION CONTAINED IN THIS COMMUNICATION IS PRIVILEGED AND/OR CONFIDENTIAL, INTENDED ONLY FOR THE INDIVIDUAL/ENTITY NAMED ABOVE. IF THE READER OF THIS NOTICE IS NOT THE INTENDED RECIPIENT, YOU ARE HEREBY NOTIFIED THAT ANY DISSEMINATION, DISTURBANCE, OR COPYING OF THIS INFORMATION IS STRICTLY PROHIBITED. IF YOU HAVE RECEIVED THIS EMAIL IN ERROR, PLEASE IMMEDIATELY NOTIFY US BY PHONE (304) 793-9007 OR EMAIL, AND DELETE IT FROM YOUR COMPUTER. THANK YOU.

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Fwd: Follow-up to East/Midwest/Plains Transmission Planning Process
by Paul Wilson 01 Apr '10

01 Apr '10

John and I were on this conf. call yesterday. I did not hear if anyone else from WV was on the call. I had a Resilient Habitats call at 6pm so I logged off this call then. I do not have time to follow up on this so I leave it to the Energy Comm. to take the lead if you want the chapter active on this issue. best, paul ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Mark Kresowik <Mark.Kresowik(a)sierraclub.org> Date: Wed, Mar 31, 2010 at 6:25 PM Subject: Follow-up to East/Midwest/Plains Transmission Planning Process To: CONS-ELP-TRANS-LINES-FORUM(a)lists.sierraclub.org A big thank you to everyone who joined the call today, it was very productive. One follow-up item requested was more detailed information about the Stakeholder Steering Committee selection process and the April 22-23rd meeting in St. Louis. Below is more information for you, and I've attached both the public interest organization comments and the supplemental comments submitted today. (See attached file: EIPC SSC Straw Proposal_Responsibilities_Final.pdf)(See attached file: Final Supplemental Comments of EIPC PIOS on SSC Proposal.doc)(See attached file: PIO Straw Proposal Comments 31March2010.pdf) Mark Kresowik Corporate Accountability and Finance Representative Sierra Club's Beyond Coal Campaign mark.kresowik(a)sierraclub.org 202-675-7914 (o) 319-621-7393 (c) 202-547-6009 (f) 408 C St NE Washington, DC 20002 ----- Forwarded by Mark Kresowik/Sierraclub on 03/31/2010 06:12 PM ----- From: <eipconline(a)keystone.org> To: <eipconline(a)keystone.org> Date: 03/31/2010 05:11 PM Subject: REMINDER: EIPC Stakeholder Participation Information Sent by: eipclist-bounces(a)keystone.org Dear Interested EIPC Stakeholders, The EIPC held a series of webinars mid-March to share a straw proposal on the EIPC Stakeholder Steering Committee (SSC) formation. The description of the proposal, webinar slides, recordings of the webinars, and the participants can be found on the EIPC website: http://eipconline.com in the library. We invite your written comments on the straw proposal until Mar. 31st by sending them to dwhiteley(a)eipconline.com. (Please note that the email address provided at the first webinar was incorrect.) These comments will also be posted on the website and considered in the next iteration of the SSC straw proposal. To reach agreement among stakeholders on the final SSC make-up and selection process, the EIPC is holding an Eastern Interconnection-wide stakeholder meeting on Thurs. and Fri., April 22-23, in St. Louis, Missouri. Register to attend with the link below. All attendees must make their own travel arrangements. The information about the hotel and room block is provided when you register. We strongly encourage everyone to attend in person, however; stakeholders who cannot attend will have remote access to the meeting through a webinar link to the plenary sessions and a conference call number for discussions that occur in breakout sessions. These will be sent out in a future email. To register by April 14th, go to: http://www.zoomerang.com/Survey/WEB22AE6SFFYEB The agenda and materials on the straw proposal will be sent to all registered participants the week before the meeting. If you have further questions about the meeting logistics, please contact Eileen at Emiller(a)keystone.org. Other questions should be directed to dwhiteley(a)eipconline.com or cmorris(a)keystone.org. _______________________________________________ EIPClist mailing list EIPClist(a)keystone.org http://keystone.org/mailman/listinfo/eipclist_keystone.org - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - To unsubscribe from the CONS-ELP-TRANS-LINES-FORUM list, send any message to: CONS-ELP-TRANS-LINES-FORUM-signoff-request(a)LISTS.SIERRACLUB.ORG Check out our Listserv Lists support site for more information: http://www.sierraclub.org/lists/faq.asp To view the Sierra Club List Terms & Conditions, see: http://www.sierraclub.org/lists/terms.asp -- Paul Wilson Sierra Club 504 Jefferson Ave Charles Town, WV 25414-1130 Phone: 304-725-4360 Cell: 304-279-1361 "There is no forward until you have gone back" ~Buddha "In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous" ~ Aristotle

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Fwd: WVNS story: Coal Slurry Battle Brews Across the Ohio River From Wheeling
by Paul Wilson 01 Apr '10

01 Apr '10

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Public News Service <wvns(a)newsservice.org> Date: Thu, Apr 1, 2010 at 4:04 AM Subject: WVNS story: Coal Slurry Battle Brews Across the Ohio River From Wheeling To: PaulWilson <pjgrunt(a)gmail.com> Public News Service-WV April 01, 2010 Coal Slurry Battle Brews Across the Ohio River From Wheeling CHARLESTON, W.V. - Two years after environmental regulators denied a petition by Ohio's largest coal mining company to build a coal slurry impoundment, Murray Energy is trying again. The company has submitted plans to that state's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to build a coal slurry facility in Belmont County, across the river and to the south from Wheeling. Opponents say the slurry would pose an environmental threat. Nachy Kanfer, spokesperson for the *Sierra Club's* Beyond Coal Campaign, says it would contain billions of gallons of water, slate and mud polluted with mercury, lead, arsenic and cyanide. "The Ohio EPA and the Strickland administration showed a lot of courage in 2008 when they upheld the law and they upheld strong public health standards and protected communities in southeast Ohio. They need to be that courageous again." Murray Energy and some members of the surrounding communities argue at least 62 percent of the local jobs rely on the Powahaton No. 6 and American Century Mines, and hundreds of jobs could be lost if those mines closed because the slurry project didn't move forward. Kanfer suggests Ohio instead look at the broader picture of how cleaner forms of energy can create jobs. "We need to be thinking about how to bring jobs to coal field communities in the state because, otherwise, this is what we are going to be faced with; unpleasant choices either to build a disaster-waiting-to-happen - like a coal slurry impoundment - or to do nothing at all." Other critics of Murray and it's controversial owner say the company has a history of mine safety and environmental violations. At a public hearing this week, resident Margaret Tomblin said her land already has been damaged from suspected coal blasting, which Murray Energy has denied. "There's a 200 year-old house that has shifted and the doors won't shut anymore and the barn doors have fell over and animals are running scared and the environment is changing." A state task-force has recommended over a dozen other ways to handle the waste, but Murray Energy claims this proposal is the only feasible option, and also states it would manage the operation safely. More information at www.sierraclub.org/coal/oh. Click here to view this story on the Public News Service RSS site and access an audio version of this and other stories: http://www.publicnewsservice.org/index.php?/content/article/13303-1<http://www.publicnewsservice.org/index.php?/content/article/13303-1> --- To be removed from this list please send an e-mail to remove(a)publicnewsservice.org <remove(a)publicnewsservice.org?subject=remove>and put the word "remove" in the subject line. -- Paul Wilson Sierra Club 504 Jefferson Ave Charles Town, WV 25414-1130 Phone: 304-725-4360 Cell: 304-279-1361 "There is no forward until you have gone back" ~Buddha "In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous" ~ Aristotle

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Fw: A Huge Victory for Clean Cars
by Jim Sconyers 29 Mar '10

29 Mar '10

Jim Sconyers jim_scon(a)yahoo.com 304.698.9628 Remember: Mother Nature bats last. --- On Mon, 3/29/10, Ann Mesnikoff, Sierra Club <membership.services(a)sierraclub.org> wrote: From: Ann Mesnikoff, Sierra Club <membership.services(a)sierraclub.org> Subject: A Huge Victory for Clean Cars To: jim_scon(a)yahoo.com Date: Monday, March 29, 2010, 4:07 PM Sierra Club #yiv1033776726 #yiv1033776726 .normal, #yiv1033776726 , #yiv1033776726 p, #yiv1033776726 td, #yiv1033776726 tr, #yiv1033776726 h1, #yiv1033776726 h2, #yiv1033776726 h3, #yiv1033776726 h4, #yiv1033776726 h5, #yiv1033776726 h6, #yiv1033776726 ul, #yiv1033776726 li, #yiv1033776726 div, #yiv1033776726 input, #yiv1033776726 textarea, #yiv1033776726 option, #yiv1033776726 select { font-family:verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-style:normal;} #yiv1033776726 .normal, #yiv1033776726 , #yiv1033776726 p, #yiv1033776726 td, #yiv1033776726 tr, #yiv1033776726 li, #yiv1033776726 div, #yiv1033776726 input, #yiv1033776726 textarea, #yiv1033776726 option, #yiv1033776726 select {font-size:12px;} #yiv1033776726 .normal {color:#000000;} #yiv1033776726 {background-color:#ffffff;} #yiv1033776726 #yiv1033776726 a {color:#333366;} #yiv1033776726 a:visited {color:#666666;} #yiv1033776726 a:hover {color:#3333ff;} #yiv1033776726 #yiv1033776726 .blackborder {border-color:#000000;} #yiv1033776726 #yiv1033776726 .smalltext {font-size:10px;} #yiv1033776726 .verysmalltext {font-size:9px;} #yiv1033776726 #yiv1033776726 H1, #yiv1033776726 .header { font-size:14px;color:#000000;font-weight:700;} #yiv1033776726 .issueheader { margin-bottom:5px;color:#669900;} #yiv1033776726 #yiv1033776726 H2, #yiv1033776726 .subtitle { font-size:12px;color:#669900;font-weight:700; } View a web version of this email. Dear Jim, Tell Your Representative to Protect the EPA's Ability to Set Clean Car Standards The EPA is poised to announce a historic new clean cars rule that marks the first major increase in fuel economy standards since their inception in 1975. But some members of Congress want to take away the EPA's Clean Air Act authority to set tailpipe standards for global warming pollution. Call your representative and ask Congress to celebrate this victory by protecting the EPA's ability to limit greenhouse gas emissions from our cars. Tired of feeding money into your gas tank? Updated fuel economy standards will save consumers billions of dollars at the pump. Worried about our country's security? The EPA's rule will reduce oil consumption by nearly 2 billion barrels. That's more oil than we imported in 2008 from Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Libya and Nigeria combined! Want America to take the lead in the fight against global warming? Cleaner cars will cut our global warming emissions by 30%. We can't let Big Oil undermine this huge victory for our country and our planet by taking away the EPA's ability to set these standards -- call your representative today. Polluters are trying to portray EPA action to fight global warming as controversial, but the truth is that both the auto industry and the United Auto Workers support new standards. Why? Because in addition to saving us money, making our country more secure, and fighting global warming, the new standards will also help more sustainable and competitive domestic auto industry flourish in the 21st century. A couple of minutes is all it takes to protect our economy, our security and our environment -- please make your call today. Thank you for all you do to protect the environment. Ann Mesnikoff Green Transportation Campaign Director P.S. Please forward this message to your friends and family. If you do not wish to receive future emails like this, click here to be removed from this type of email contact. Update My Profile | Manage My Email Preferences | Update My Interests Sierra Club 85 Second St. San Francisco, CA 94105

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Fw: re: Sierra Club appeals TransGas West Virginia CTL air permit
by Jim Sconyers 29 Mar '10

29 Mar '10

FYI Jim Sconyers jim_scon(a)yahoo.com 304.698.9628 ======================================================== Groups Appeal Mingo County Coal-to-Liquids Facility Air Permit Updated Monday, March 29, 2010; 12:31 PM From: The State Journal ( Charleston , West Virginia ) Sierra Club, Coal River Mountain Watch and others say the proposed plant's air pollution emissions have been underestimated. Story by Pam Kasey CHARLESTON -- State environmental groups filed an appeal March 29 of the permit for a coal-to-liquids plant proposed for Mingo County by TransGas Development Systems of New York. The plant’s air pollution emissions have been underestimated by the company and by the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection, according to appellants the Sierra Club, Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, Coal River Mountain Watch and West Virginia Highlands Conservancy. By classifying the facility as a “minor” rather than a “major” source of pollutants, they argue, the WVDEP Division of Air Quality is allowing the developers to avoid expensive analyses and control technologies. TransGas first proposed the plant in December 2008. As proposed, the $3 billion plant would require 3 million tons of locally mined coal each year and would produce more than 6.5 million barrels of gasoline, along with other products; it would employ 3,000 during construction and 200 thereafter. WVDEP’s DAQ issued an air pollution permit on Feb. 25 allowing the company to begin construction. But TransGas and DAQ did not properly estimate the plants emissions, according to the appeal filed with the West Virginia Air Quality Board. Among other questions, the appellants are asking the board to determine whether the TransGas facility has the potential to emit greater than 100 tons per year of sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide, particulate matter, nitrogen oxides and/or volatile organic compounds and should therefore be issued a “major source” rather than a “minor source” permit. The appeal would require TransGas and DEP to reveal all expected air pollution and to include control technology to protect human and environmental health. -30-

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Fwd: Fw: Water News Release (HQ): EPA Proposes Veto of Mine Permit Under the Clean Water Act
by Paul Wilson 26 Mar '10

26 Mar '10

A little more info on the Spruce No. 1 mine in Logan County. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Fred Heutte <phred(a)sunlightdata.com> Date: Fri, Mar 26, 2010 at 6:19 PM Subject: Fw: Water News Release (HQ): EPA Proposes Veto of Mine Permit Under the Clean Water Act To: COAL-CAMPAIGN-ALERTS(a)lists.sierraclub.org ------ mail forwarded, original message follows ------ From: usaepa(a)govdelivery.com <U.S. EPA> Subject: Water News Release (HQ): EPA Proposes Veto of Mine Permit Under the Clean Water Act Date: Fri, 26 Mar 2010 11:03:30 -0500 (CDT) *CONTACT:* EPA Press Office press(a)epa.gov 202-564-6794 202-564-7873 * * *FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE* March 26, 2010 *EPA Proposes Veto of Mine Permit Under the Clean Water Act * " " *WASHINGTON* - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) today announced its proposal under the Clean Water Act to significantly restrict or prohibit mountain top mining at the Spruce No. 1 surface mine in Logan County, W. Va. Spruce No.1 mine is one of the largest mountaintop removal operations ever proposed in Central Appalachia. The project was permitted in 2007 and subsequently delayed by litigation. The Spruce No. 1 mine would bury over 7 miles of headwater streams, directly impact 2,278 acres of forestland and degrade water quality in streams adjacent to the mine. EPA's proposed determination comes after extended discussions with the company failed to produce an agreement that would lead to a significant decrease of the environmental and health impacts of the Spruce No. 1 mine. "Coal, and coal mining, is part of our nation's energy future, and for that reason EPA has made repeated efforts to foster dialogue and find a responsible path forward. But we must prevent the significant and irreversible damage that comes from mining pollution -- and the damage from this project would be irreversible," said EPA Regional Administrator for the Mid-Atlantic, Shawn Garvin. "This recommendation is consistent with our broader Clean Water Act efforts in Central Appalachia. EPA has a duty under the law to protect water quality and safeguard the people who rely on these waters for drinking, fishing and swimming." EPA has used its Clean Water Act veto authority in just 12 circumstances since 1972 and never for a previously permitted project. The proposed determination, signed today by Regional Administrator Garvin, identifies numerous potential adverse impacts associated with the Spruce No.. 1 project: . *Water Quality Impacts: *The mine will cause* *adverse impacts to drinking water, native aquatic and water- dependent communities in the Spruce Fork watershed. Drainage from the Spruce No. 1 project is likely to include high levels of total dissolved solids (TDS) and selenium which adversely affect the naturally occurring aquatic communities. These include birth defects in fish and other aquatic life and can also result in toxic effects to embryos, resulting in abnormal development or death for those organisms. . *Fish and Wildlife Impacts:* Mining waste placed into headwater streams will impact fish and wildlife which depend for all or part of their lifecycles on these headwater systems. Ecosystem functions performed by headwaters are lost when the headwater stream is buried or removed. These functions are lost not only to the headwater stream itself, but also to downstream aquatic ecosystems. . *Mitigation Impacts:* The project's mitigation plan inadequately evaluates the nature and extent of mining related aquatic impacts and therefore fails to replace streams' lost ecological services. Natural stream channels buried by mining will be replaced, in part, by ditches being built to drain stormwater off of the mine, not to compensate for natural stream losses. These ditches will also drain water contaminated by mining into streams adjacent to the mine. . *Cumulative Mining Impacts: *EPA believes that the Spruce No. 1 project, in conjunction with numerous other mining operations either under construction or proposed for the Coal River basin, will contribute to the cumulative loss of water quality, aquatic systems, and forest resources. The Coal River basin is already heavily mined and substantially impaired. Landscape and site specific assessments reveal that past and current mountaintop mining has caused substantial, irreplaceable loss of resources and an irreversible effect on these resources within the Coal River basin. CWA Section 404(c) authorizes EPA to restrict or prohibit placing certain pollutants in streams, lakes, rivers, wetlands and other waters if the agency determines that the activities would result in "unacceptable adverse impacts" to the environment, water quality, or water supplies. This authority applies to proposed projects as well as projects previously permitted under the CWA. A final decision to restrict or prohibit the Spruce No.1 mine will be made in EPA Headquarters based on a recommendation from the Regional Administrator, public comments, and discussions with the Army Corps of Engineers and the Mingo Logan Coal Company. The proposed determination is being published in the federal register* *and EPA is taking public comment for 60 days. EPA is also scheduling a public hearing in West Virginia to provide an additional opportunity for public input. The proposed determination: http://www.epa.gov/region03/mtntop/spruce1documents.html R088 Note: If a link above doesn't work, please copy and paste the URL into a browser. View all news releases related to water [ http://service.govdelivery.com/service/edition.html?code=USAEPA_26 &format=Web&email_type=bulletin<http://service.govdelivery.com/service/edition.html?code=USAEPA_26%0A&forma…>] ________________________________________________________________________ Please join the conversation on our new open government Web site [ http://www.epa.gov/open/index.html?gd ]. EPA Seal You can view or update your subscriptions or e-mail address at any time on your Subscriber Preferences Page [ https://service.govdelivery.com/service/user.html?code=USAEPA ]. All you will need is your e-mail address. If you have any questions or problems e-mail support(a)govdelivery.com for assistance. This service is provided to you at no charge by U.S. Environmental Protection Agency [ http://www.epa.gov/ ]. Visit Us on Facebook [ http://facebook.com/epa ] Visit Us on Twitter [ http://twitter.com/epagov ] Visit Us on YouTube [ http://youtube.com/usepagov ] Visit Us on flickr [ http://flickr.com/usepagov ] Sent by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency . 1200 Pennsylvania Avenue NW . Washington DC 20460 . 202- 564-4355 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - To unsubscribe from the COAL-CAMPAIGN-ALERTS list, send any message to: COAL-CAMPAIGN-ALERTS-signoff-request(a)LISTS.SIERRACLUB.ORG Check out our Listserv Lists support site for more information: http://www.sierraclub.org/lists/faq.asp Sign up to receive Sierra Club Insider, the flagship e-newsletter. Sent out twice a month, it features the Club's latest news and activities. Subscribe and view recent editions at http://www.sierraclub.org/insider/ -- Paul Wilson Sierra Club 504 Jefferson Ave Charles Town, WV 25414-1130 Phone: 304-725-4360 Cell: 304-279-1361 "There is no forward until you have gone back" ~Buddha "In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous" ~ Aristotle

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FW: Fwd: More state and local victories
by Grubb, Karen 26 Mar '10

26 Mar '10

Yes I do mean that one. From: Frank Young [mailto:fyoung@mountain.net] Sent: Friday, March 26, 2010 5:54 PM To: Grubb, Karen Subject: Re: [EC] Fwd: More state and local victories Karen, if you mean WV Senate Bill 614, relating to the Public Service Commission and power transmission lines, no, it has not yet been signed into law. Bill Howley writes: The enrolled version is now up on the WV Leg. site. I have just done a post on The Power Line here <http://calhounpowerline.wordpress.com/2010/03/24/final-version-of-sb614 -now-available/> . My post has links to the final version and directions on where to find the changes, because the enrolled version is the new version of the WV statute without annotation of changes. The fact that the enrolled version is now available on the Web means that it is probably on its way to Manchin for signature. Bill Frank ----- Original Message ----- From: Grubb, Karen <mailto:Karen.Grubb@fairmontstate.edu> To: WV Chapter Energy Committee <mailto:EC@osenergy.org> Sent: Friday, March 26, 2010 12:44 PM Subject: Re: [EC] Fwd: More state and local victories PSC bill? Has it been signed into law? From: ec-bounces(a)osenergy.org [mailto:ec-bounces@osenergy.org] On Behalf Of Paul Wilson Sent: Friday, March 26, 2010 12:28 PM To: WV Chapter Energy Committee Subject: [EC] Fwd: More state and local victories Let Scott know if/when we get any notable victories. paul ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Scott Elkins <scott.elkins(a)sierraclub.org> Date: Fri, Mar 26, 2010 at 11:57 AM Subject: More state and local victories To: CONS-CRP-MEMBERS(a)lists.sierraclub.org A big state victory was registered last week in Colorado, with the Sierra Club helping to win successful passage of the second most aggressive Renewable Electricity Standard in the country. The bill also set in place strong labor standards and small-scale distributed generation standards. Read all about it on the victory tracker here: http://clubhouse.sierraclub.org/chapters/tracker/2010/03-10-CO-RES.aspx Has your chapter or group won a victory recently? Did you score a big win in the past year or two that you want to crow about? Tell us about it on our online form at http://tinyurl.com/y8fn9an and we'll get it posted on the tracker within a week. Remember, the Club's professional communications staff use the tracker as a source of stories for online and print publications, so it's a great way to get the word out about your success. Regards, Scott E. Scott Elkins Director for Chapter Coordination - Climate Recovery Campaign Sierra Club 2327 E Franklin Ave Minneapolis MN 55406 tel. 612-659-9124 fax 612-659-9129 cell 612-720-0793 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - To unsubscribe from the CONS-CRP-MEMBERS list, send any message to: CONS-CRP-MEMBERS-signoff-request(a)LISTS.SIERRACLUB.ORG Check out our Listserv Lists support site for more information: http://www.sierraclub.org/lists/faq.asp Sign up to receive Sierra Club Insider, the flagship e-newsletter. Sent out twice a month, it features the Club's latest news and activities. Subscribe and view recent editions at http://www.sierraclub.org/insider/ -- Paul Wilson Sierra Club 504 Jefferson Ave Charles Town, WV 25414-1130 Phone: 304-725-4360 Cell: 304-279-1361 "There is no forward until you have gone back" ~Buddha "In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous" ~ Aristotle ________________________________ _______________________________________________ EC mailing list EC(a)osenergy.org http://osenergy.org/mailman/listinfo/ec

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Please write LTE's re Spruce; Sierra Club's suggested talking pts below
by Aaron Isherwood 26 Mar '10

26 Mar '10

Jim and others: It would be great if folks could submit letters to the editor praising EPA for its announcement today on Spruce. I'm attaching some suggested talking points to help you prepare letters. Thanks, Aaron Aaron Isherwood Senior Staff Attorney Sierra Club Environmental Law Program 85 Second Street, 2d Floor San Francisco, CA 94105-3441 Phone: (415) 977-5680 Fax: (415) 977-5793 CONFIDENTIAL LEGAL COMMUNICATION/WORK PRODUCT This e-mail may contain privileged and confidential attorney-client communications and/or attorney work product. If you receive this e-mail inadvertently, please reply to the sender and delete all versions on your system. Thank you.

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Re: [EC] Sierra Club statement: EPA Recommends No Mining at Massive Mountaintop Removal Site
by Jim Sconyers 26 Mar '10

26 Mar '10

This is absolutely dynamite - - no, nuclear! Some stuff will surely hit the fan!! Amazingly, environmental justice is even included as one of the objections to Spruce. Jim Sconyers jim_scon(a)yahoo.com 304.698.9628 Remember: Mother Nature bats last. --- On Fri, 3/26/10, Aaron Isherwood <aaron.isherwood(a)sierraclub.org> wrote: From: Aaron Isherwood <aaron.isherwood(a)sierraclub.org> Subject: Sierra Club statement: EPA Recommends No Mining at Massive Mountaintop Removal Site To: "Jim Sconyers" <jim_scon(a)yahoo.com>, "Regina Hendrix" <reginahendrix999(a)gmail.com>, "William DePaulo" <william.depaulo(a)gmail.com> Date: Friday, March 26, 2010, 1:07 PM Breaking news... Aaron Isherwood Senior Staff Attorney Sierra Club Environmental Law Program 85 Second Street, 2d Floor San Francisco, CA 94105-3441 Phone: (415) 977-5680 Fax: (415) 977-5793 http://action.sierraclub.org/site/MessageViewer?em_id=167241.0 For Immediate Release -- March 26, 2010 Contact: Oliver Bernstein, Sierra Club, 512.477.2152 EPA Recommends No Mining at Biggest Proposed Mountaintop Removal Coal Mine Statement from Sierra Club Director of Environmental Quality Ed Hopkins Washington, D.C. -- The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) today recommended restricting or prohibiting mining at the nation’s largest proposed mountaintop removal coal mining site, the Spruce No. 1 Mine in Logan County, West Virginia. In response the Sierra Club's Director of Environmental Quality, Ed Hopkins, issued the following statement: "It is good to see the EPA applying more scientifically rigorous analysis to these permits. The best available science tells us that proposed mines like the massive Spruce Mine would pollute waterways, destroy mountains and devastate communities. "We hope that the agency follows through on this recommendation. This massive mine would bury seven miles of streams, destroy thousands of acres of land and disrupt local communities. Mountaintop removal coal mining is an egregious environmental injustice and an embarrassment for America. "Local residents have been actively challenging the approval of this permit at the Spruce No. 1 Mine in Logan County for more than twelve years. With the 40th anniversary of Earth Day approaching, it's time for the Obama administration to fix the Bush administration rulemaking that allows mines to fill waterways with waste." EPA's proposed determination is attached. ### -- Oliver Bernstein Senior Communications Strategist Sierra Club Phone: 512.477.2152 Cell: 512.289.8618

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Fwd: More state and local victories
by Paul Wilson 26 Mar '10

26 Mar '10

Let Scott know if/when we get any notable victories. paul ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Scott Elkins <scott.elkins(a)sierraclub.org> Date: Fri, Mar 26, 2010 at 11:57 AM Subject: More state and local victories To: CONS-CRP-MEMBERS(a)lists.sierraclub.org A big state victory was registered last week in Colorado, with the Sierra Club helping to win successful passage of the second most aggressive Renewable Electricity Standard in the country. The bill also set in place strong labor standards and small-scale distributed generation standards. Read all about it on the victory tracker here: http://clubhouse.sierraclub.org/chapters/tracker/2010/03-10-CO-RES.aspx Has your chapter or group won a victory recently? Did you score a big win in the past year or two that you want to crow about? Tell us about it on our online form at http://tinyurl.com/y8fn9an and we’ll get it posted on the tracker within a week. Remember, the Club’s professional communications staff use the tracker as a source of stories for online and print publications, so it’s a great way to get the word out about your success. Regards, Scott E. Scott Elkins Director for Chapter Coordination - Climate Recovery Campaign Sierra Club 2327 E Franklin Ave Minneapolis MN 55406 tel. 612-659-9124 fax 612-659-9129 cell 612-720-0793 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - To unsubscribe from the CONS-CRP-MEMBERS list, send any message to: CONS-CRP-MEMBERS-signoff-request(a)LISTS.SIERRACLUB.ORG Check out our Listserv Lists support site for more information: http://www.sierraclub.org/lists/faq.asp Sign up to receive Sierra Club Insider, the flagship e-newsletter. Sent out twice a month, it features the Club's latest news and activities. Subscribe and view recent editions at http://www.sierraclub.org/insider/ -- Paul Wilson Sierra Club 504 Jefferson Ave Charles Town, WV 25414-1130 Phone: 304-725-4360 Cell: 304-279-1361 "There is no forward until you have gone back" ~Buddha "In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous" ~ Aristotle

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