The day after the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released far-reaching new standards for power plants that could have a crippling effect on West Virginia’s economy, U.S. Representative Nick J. Rahall (D-WV), top Democrat on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, grilled EPA officials at a House hearing before the Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment.

“Some time ago, it had long been my belief that the EPA could be a positive force in the permitting process for surface coal mining in West Virginia.  After years of battles in courtrooms that left coal miners and coal communities in a long, tenuous limbo, this EPA had an opportunity to help achieve a center point that would provide for both energy development and environmental preservation.  But it has utterly failed,” said Rahall.  “Instead, this EPA took an extra-legal approach, choosing to step over the bounds of the law to promote an ideological agenda and, in so doing, to push opposing parties even further from the balance we have all sought for so long.”

The Friends of Coal Soccer Complex at Trace Fork was officially dedicated on March 25. The dedication drew a large crowd and the two large fields were named in honor of past-WVCA Chairman and Pritchard Mining President Andrew Jordon and board member and Asset Management Principal Ralph Ballard.  Both men had worked tirelessly, making significant donations of time, money and effort into making the fields a reality.

From the very beginning, more than ten years ago, our members stepped up to provide the “heavy lifting” to make sure this vision became a magnificent asset to the Kanawha County area.  Initially, Ralph Ballard (Asset Management Group) marshaled equipment, operators and support for the extensive earth moving and grading work that had to be done to complete the tremendous complex of grass fields.  The second dimension of this complex was then undertaken with Andrew Jordon (Pritchard Mining) and his people in the development of the turf field. The facility was a collective effort through individual in-kind contributions by Asset Management, Pritchard Mining, Walker Machinery, Rish Equipment, Rudd Equipment and Maxum Petroleum.

It has been announced that the facility will be home to all of the University of Charleston’s Women’s Soccer home games and practices. In addition, the field has already been used by an estimated 800 kids between mid-January to the end of February. Organizers say the facility is quickly getting booked up! For example the month of August already has nearly 2,300 kids registered to use the complex.

Turnout for the dedication was excellent, with several hundred in attendance.

Just days after a U.S. District Court shot down an agency veto of the Spruce Mine, the EPA has doubled down on its war against coal with a new set of rules which will essentially cripple the nation’s remaining coal-fired power plants.

The rule, announced Tuesday, will likely derail plans for 15 new coal-fired power plants across 10 states. The proposal drew harsh criticism from industry, congressional Republicans and coal-state Democrats, while environmental groups praised EPA's move as a landmark action but also said the agency should have done more.

The websites for the West Virginia Coal Association and the Friends of Coal have been busy over the past four years. According to Google Analytics, the West Virginia Coal Association site (www.wvcoal.com) has drawn some 477,000 page views from 196,255 visitors since July 2008. During that same time frame, the Friends of Coal website (www.friendsofcoal.org) saw 363,913 page views from 124,697 visitors. Most of those visiting the pages saw at least three pages and spent several minutes on the pages prior to leaving the site. Well over 70 percent of those visiting the sites were first-time visitors (74 percent for the association site and 82 percent for the Friends of Coal site).

Two long-standing statewide events are being combined to create the newly named West Virginia Leadership Summit at the Waterfront Place Hotel in Morgantown, WV on April 18^th and 19^th.  The premiere Leadership Summit combines the highly successful WV Leadership Conference, hosted for 10 years by the West Virginia Roundtable, and Generaltion West Virginia’s equally successful 5-year old Young Leaders’ Conference.

The Summit will feature keynote speaker, William C. Taylor, co-founder and founding editor of Fast Company magazine, as well as established leaders of business, industry, governmentl, education, private enterprise and philanthroy such as WV Governor Earl Ray Tomblin; Susan Brewer, CEO of Steptoe & Johnson law firm; William “Pat” Getty, president of Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation; Kim Knopf, President/CEO of Innovative Mattress Solutions; Nenry Harmon, President/CEO/Chairman of Triana Energy.  The Summit will include a series of workshop sessions  as well.

Registration information can be found at www.wvleadership.org.