Jay Dee's Post

More than 1 million acres of Appalachia have already been destroyed. An estimated 1,200 miles of headwater streams have been buried under tons of mining wastes. Over 500 mountains have been permanently scarred. Homes have been ruined and drinking water supplies contaminated. It is time to end this especially destructive method of coal mining. Our bill, [...]

By Jeff Biggers What’s the matter with the Democrats in the Midwest and the challenge of coal? Have they turned their backs on the great American pastoral and our devastated coalfield communities and gobbled up the hook-line-and-sinker of Big Coal public relations shams and Big Coal lobby money? Instead of making false promises of more boom-bust jobs in [...]

By Jeff Biggers No American leader has done more to advance a clean energy future than President Obama. Nor has any American president done more to invoke a mandate for stricter workplace safety and environmental regulations. And yet, ever since President Obama ?rst visited my native southern Illinois coal?elds in 1997 on a golf outing with a [...]

While President Obama addresses the US Congress in his historic State of the Union tonight, our nation will sit back and burn an estimated 115,000 tons of coal. Close to 250,000 tons of CO2 will be released from coal-fired plants during the hourlong presentation; hundreds of pounds of toxic mercury emissions will enter our air, [...]

by Ken Ward Jr. That was the scene at the West Virginia Capitol back in early November, when the stae’s political leaders turned out in force to join Gov. Joe Manchin in backing the mining industry against what they say is the Obama administration’s “war on coal.” This afternoon, Gov. Manchin is having a quite different meeting [...]

by Ken Ward Jr. Yesterday’s release of the report detailing the expected decline of Central Appalachia’s coal production has generated continued discussion here on Coal Tattoo about the subject of a regional economic transition that would involve more “green jobs.” Well, today we got at least a little bit of an answer from the Obama administration, in [...]

by Ken Ward Jr. Well, everyone seems to think it should be quite a show tonight at the University of Charleston when Massey Energy President Don Blankenship and environmental lawyer and activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. debate mountaintop removal, climate change and future energy policies. University of Charleston officials are calling it a “Forum on the Future [...]

by Ken Ward Jr. Given the numerous challenges working against any substantial recovery of the region’s coal industry, and that production is projected to decline significantly in the coming decades, diversification of Central Appalachian economies is now more critical than ever. State and local leaders should support new economic development across the region, especially in the [...]

by Ken Ward Jr. Hey folks, The Associated Press is having its annual pre-legislative briefings for reporters this afternoon at Marshall University’s South Charleston campus. They asked me to moderate a session about cap-and-trade legislation … and after that session Gov. Joe Manchin spoke to the reporters. I thought I would post the latest dispatch from [...]

by Ken Ward Jr. Massey Energy is increasing CEO Don Blankenship’s potential salary. According to the AP story: A regulatory filing outlining the contract Blankenship signed recently shows Massey has increased the size of cash and stock bonuses and extended the deal to two years. Blankenship had been working under a series of one-year deals. Blankenship’s salary stays [...]