05Sep

An Alternate Reality

The ongoing debate in the U.S. over the future of coal seems to exist in an alternate reality. While we fight over everything from market distortions to the permitting of coal export terminals, the majority of the world is embracing coal, building more modern, far more efficient plants than our own. Coal isn’t a problem […]
04Sep

Trump’s Clean Power Plan Replacement is Exactly What the Coal Industry Needs

Via The Hill: According to Rep. Jerry McNerney (D-Calif.), “Trump’s latest energy plan leaves American energy and innovation in the dark.” The baseless broadside against the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) new Affordable Clean Energy (ACE) rule is, to borrow the words of William Shakespeare, “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” Arguably, McNerney’s views should come as no […]
04Sep

Letter: Trump Delivers on Promises

Via The Roanoke Times: Between 2011 and the close of 2016, more than 62,000 U.S. coal miners — nearly half of the coal mining workforce — lost their jobs. This wasn’t just the product of a challenging marketplace. The coal industry was the target of a series of purposeful and carefully-orchestrated regulatory punches from a […]
04Sep

EPA Plan Makes it Possible to Reduce Emissions Without Failed Obama-era Regulations

Via The Washington Examiner: A diverse, reliable mix of fuels is essential to achieving President Trump’s goal of America being a global energy superpower. By recognizing the value of energy supplies that deliver power around-the-clock, the Trump administration and the Environmental Protection Agency are doing what they can to ensure that coal plants undergird the electric […]
31Aug

Washington’s Fall Agenda: EPA to Focus on New Power Plant, Water Rules

Via The Hill:  Federal officials will be hard at work throughout the fall, moving forward with high-profile actions to implement President Trump’s agenda to dismantle major environmental regulations, boost fossil fuel production and streamline protections for endangered species. Rather than follow the pattern of a typically slow August bookended by congressional recesses, the Environmental Protection Agency […]
31Aug

How About Now?

Like a snowball tumbling downhill, the reliability crisis is only picking up steam. Despite the continuous and ever-louder warnings that we are quickly approaching a point of no return, regulators and grid operators have brushed aside concerns and spoken in platitudes about protecting a free market that is anything but free. Just how much longer […]
29Aug

EPA Head: New Coal Plant Plan Will ‘Level the Playing Field

Via The Hill:  Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Andrew Wheeler on Tuesday said that the administration’s newly proposed alternative to the Obama-era Clean Power Plan (CPP) will “level the playing field” for coal plants in an era where renewable fuels and liquid natural gas are growing in prominence. Speaking at an Ohio Chamber of Commerce event, Wheeler praised […]
29Aug

Switching to Gas Power Plants More Expensive than Coal, Study Says

Via The Tribune Star: A recent study for the mining industry found the cost of shutting down coal-fired power plants and replacing them with gas-fired plants would far exceed the cost of maintaining the coal plants. The study by Arlington, Virginia-based Energy Ventures Analysis involved three plants located in the nation’s largest wholesale electricity market. […]
27Aug

Trump Ends Obama’s War on Coal

Via The Washington Examiner: Last week’s announcement from the Trump administration, on the EPA’s new Affordable Clean Energy Plan to replace the Clean Power Plan, is another welcome addition to President Trump’s list of promises fulfilled that benefit American workers. The American economy has long languished under burdensome, radical regulations imposed by the Obama administration. […]
27Aug

Fixing Clean Power Plan is Sensible First Step

Via The Huntington Herald-Dispatch: Washington loves controversy. And critics are undoubtedly clucking right now about the Trump administration’s plan to replace the Clean Power Plan (CPP) with a modified effort. But the administration deserves credit for updating the plan, rather than scrapping it entirely. For starters, the CPP envisioned by President Obama represented a massive […]