The Washington Post
Friday 18 January 2008
A group backed by the coal industry and its utility allies is waging a $35 million campaign in primary and caucus states to rally public support for coal-fired electricity and to fuel opposition to legislation that Congress is crafting to slow climate change.
The group, called Americans for Balanced Energy Choices, has spent $1.3 million on billboard, newspaper, television and radio ads in Iowa, Nevada and South Carolina.
One of its television ads shows a power cord being plugged into a lump of coal, which it calls "an American resource that will help us with vital energy security" and "the fuel that powers our way of life." The ads note that half of U.S. electricity comes from coal-fired plants.
The group has also deployed teams on the campaign trail; about 50 people, many of them paid, walked around as human billboards and handed out leaflets outside Tuesday's Democratic debate in Nevada with questions for voters to ask the candidates.
"In Iowa, there is a saying that you don't get to be president unless you go through Iowa. We'd like to say that you don't get to be president unless you understand how complicated this issue is," Joe Lucas, the group's executive director, said Wednesday night during a stopover en route from Nevada to South Carolina.
The group's message - that coal-fired power plants can be clean, and that more of them are needed to meet the growing demand for electricity - comes when opposition to new coal plants is mounting because they generate greenhouse gases. In Kansas, where a state agency rejected a permit for two proposed coal plants, opinion polls show that roughly two out of three people opposed the plants. That sentiment, plus soaring construction costs and uncertainty about federal climate change legislation, last year prompted U.S. companies to abandon or postpone plans to build dozens of new coal plants.
The coal mining industry is fighting back. It increased the budget of the National Mining Association, the industry's main lobbying group, by 20 percent this year, to $19.7 million. Last September, the industry also boosted the budget of Americans for Balanced Energy Choices more than fourfold. The roster of backers includes 28 companies and trade associations such as Peabody Energy, Arch Coal, Duke Energy, Southern Co. and the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association.
The controversy over coal has been especially heated in Nevada, where environmental groups and Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid, who represents the state, have opposed construction of three new coal-fired power plants. "They're all dirty," Reid said last fall. He urged utilities to rely on energy efficiency and solar and wind power. (Last year, according to a report issued yesterday by the American Wind Energy Association, wind made up 30 percent of all new electricity generating capacity.)
On Tuesday night, the issue came up during the debate among the three leading Democratic presidential candidates.
Former senator John Edwards said, "I believe we need a moratorium on the building of any more coal-fired power plants unless and until we have the ability to capture and sequester the carbon in the ground."
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) said, "I have said we should not be siting any more coal-powered plants unless they can have the most modern, clean technology. And I want big demonstration projects to figure out how we would capture and sequester carbon."
Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) did not commit himself on coal plants but said Americans had to make their buildings, lighting and appliances "more efficient."
"Yes, we do need to be more energy efficient," Lucas said. "But even as we become more efficient, we're plugging more things into the wall."
The ads being run by Americans for Balanced Energy Choices talk about "clean coal." New power plants are cleaner than they used to be because they must meet more stringent federal regulations limiting such pollutants as nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide. But climate change is linked to carbon dioxide emissions, which are not yet regulated; those emissions have dropped more modestly as plants have become more efficient.
The group's newspaper ads avoid that distinction. They say that today's carbon-fired plants are "70 percent cleaner based on regulated emissions per unit of energy produced." That does not refer to carbon dioxide.
New coal-plant technologies that might capture carbon dioxide and store, or sequester, it underground are expensive, experimental and not in commercial use. But Lucas says carbon capture and storage "is no longer a pipe dream. It's nearing a point where it's real." Many environmentalists argue that until that time, the United States should focus on renewable energy such as solar and wind. Coal advocates say those energy sources cannot be relied on 24 hours a day and, so far, the energy they produce cannot be easily stored.
ABEC's ads, produced by the same firm that made "what happens here stays here" ads to promote Las Vegas to tourists, also talk about "affordable" energy. The group says in a TV ad that the price of coal is one-third that of other fuels. But coal prices have risen, albeit not as much as oil. And environmentalists and economists argue that the price of coal does not include substantial environmental costs.
"We welcome a vigorous debate about our energy future and solving global warming. Unfortunately ABEC is spending millions of dollars on misinformation about our energy choices . . . instead of engaging in a real debate about the true costs of coal and clean energy alternatives," said Bruce Nilles, director of Sierra Club's national coal campaign.
Environmentalists are also worried that the ads aired by ABEC so far are just the beginning of what could be a much bigger offensive once Congress gets down to work on a climate change bill sponsored by Sens. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) and John W. Warner (R-Va.). An ad targeting that bill is currently being shown on video monitors at the baggage carousels at Dulles International Airport.
In 1993, an ad campaign by the health-care industry featuring a fictional couple named Harry and Louise helped torpedo the Clinton administration's health-care proposal. Now, some supporters of the Lieberman-Warner bill fear that the coal industry may use a similar strategy to kill legislation aimed at slowing climate change by stressing potential consumer costs and not the societal benefits.
"Big coal may launch a 'Harry and Louise'-style disinformation campaign to sink global warming solutions in Congress," said Daniel J. Weiss, senior fellow and director of climate strategy for the Center for American Progress.
One of the coal industry group's radio ads hints at those themes. A woman asks: "How can we become less dependent on foreign resources? What fuels will keep power bills reasonable and be environmentally responsible?" A man responds, "We have many questions for our candidates, and coal has to be part of the discussion."
Lucas is working on that. Last year, he wrote letters that appeared in a dozen newspapers. On Tuesday, he appeared on Nevada public radio. On Wednesday, the group's views were quoted approvingly in an editorial in the Las Vegas Review-Journal. "We're getting the message out," Lucas said.
Coal Producer Pays $20 Million Pollution Fine
The Associated Press
Thursday 17 January 2008
The country's fourth-largest coal producer, Massey Energy Co., will pay a $20 million fine as part of a settlement with the government over allegations it routinely polluted hundreds of streams and waterways in West Virginia and Kentucky with sediment-filled waste water and coal slurry.
Under the agreement with the Environmental Protection Agency, Massey Energy, headquartered in Richmond, Va., also will invest millions of dollars for pollution control improvements at its 44 mines and coal facilities in the two states and in Virginia, the EPA and Justice Department said Thursday.
The EPA estimates the improvements required by the settlement will cost Massey as much as $10 million, although the company said the cost is expected to be less. ''That's their estimate,'' said Shane Harvey, Massey's assistant general counsel. ''We do not have a firm estimate at this time. My guess is it would be below $10 million.''
The agreement settled a complaint filed by the EPA in May 2007 alleging that the company violated the federal Clean Water Act on at least 4,500 occasions between January 2000 and the end of 2006 by discharging mining waste and sediment - including hazardous metals - into hundreds of streams and waterways and failing to control spills of coal slurry during its mining operation.
Some of the waste water discharges were more than 10 times the amounts allowed by state permits, the EPA said.
Massey officials announced the agreement Thursday, noting that it would allow the company to avoid costly litigation and resolve questions about its liability for the damage. ''We believe this agreement will benefit the environment as well as our shareholders,'' said Baxter F. Phillips Jr., the company's executive vice president and chief administrative officer.
The maximum penalties facing the company for the thousands of violations and days when permits were exceeded could have been as high as $2.4 billion, according to the EPA.
The pollution ''destroyed streams, destroyed fish habitat. There was definitely an environmental impact here,'' Granta Nakayama, the assistant EPA administrator for enforcement, said in an interview. ''We thought it was very serious.''
The $20 million civil penalty is the largest ever for discharge permit violations under the Clean Water Act, said Nakayama. ''This is a landmark settlement for the environment, and raises the bar for the mining industry.''
As part of the agreement, Massey promises to develop and implement new procedures and tracking systems to prevent waste water discharges and slurry spills, and allow third-party audits of its pollution prevention program. The company also agrees to set aside 200 acres of riverfront land in West Virginia for conservation and protection against future mining.
Ronald Tenpas, head of the Justice Department's environment and natural resources division, said the measures agreed to by the coal company ''represent a significant step forward in the way that mining facilities currently address Clean Water Act compliance.''
The new pollution prevention measures are expected to keep an estimated 380 million pounds of sediment and other pollutants from Massey's mining operation out of the three states' waters each year.
The settlement concludes an EPA investigation of more than two years of Massey's mining operation. The complaint filed last May alleged that Massey routinely released metals, sediment and acid mine drainage into streams and rivers at amounts 40 percent or more than allowed by state permits.
And investigators found that Massey's operations failed to control spills of coal slurry, containing sediment and metals, allowing it to clog streams and harm fish habitat.
Massey, which reported $89 million in profits on revenues of nearly $1.7 billion for the first nine months of 2007, is the largest coal producer in the Appalachia region, operating 19 mining complexes - 33 underground and 11 surface mines as well as processing facilities - in southern Virginia, southern West Virginia and eastern Kentucky.
The company has been embroiled in a string of legal and environmental disputes from complaints about its hilltop mining practices and pollution of waterways to mine safety and high-profile contract disputes.
Currently its president and chairman, Don Blankenship, is at the center of conflict of interest allegations involving the chief justice of West Virginia's supreme court. Photographs surfaced with Blankenship and the justice, Elliott Maynard, socializing together on the Mediterranean last summer - four months before the court in a 3-2 decision with Maynard in the majority reversed a $76.3 million judgment against Massey in a dispute brought by a bankrupt coal company. Other problems facing Massey include a $219.8 million jury verdict awarded to Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel Corp. in a contract dispute and a record $1.5 million in fines by the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration for safety violations involving the deaths of two miners in a January 2006 mine fire. The fire at the Aracoma Alma No. 1 Mine in Logan County, W.Va., also is the subject of a federal criminal investigation.
Environmental Protection Agency: www.epa.gov
Massey Energy Company: http://www.masseyenergyco.com/
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