The Arch Coal Foundation honored 12 outstanding West Virginia classroom teachers today with Arch Coal Teacher Achievement Awards. It is the state's longest running, privately sponsored teacher recognition program.

Announcement of the teachers receiving a 2012 Arch Coal Teacher Achievement Award was made by Mr Steven F Leer, Arch Coal chairman and chief executive officer. He was accompanied by West Virginia Governor Earl Ray Tomblin and West Virginia Education Association President Dale Lee.

The Friends of Coal is once again joining with the West Virginia Radio Corporation and MetroNews to sponsor the WV Scholars Program. Friends of Coal will be the title sponsor of the scholarship program.  The program is a full, four-year scholarship covering the cost of tuition, fees, room and board at West Virginia Wesleyan College. 

Valued at $125,000, the scholarship will be awarded to one lucky student from West Virginia who is currently a member of the junior class in high school.

You can apply for the scholarship by going to wvscholar.com

CHARLESTON – A Senate Resolution introduced by Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) would nullify the EPA’s Utility MACT rule, finalized this past December. Under Congressional rules, if the resolution gains 30 pledges of support from the Senate, it must be placed on the Senate Calendar for vote. With a simple majority vote by the full Senate, the resolution would overturn the MACT rule.

We urge West Virginia Senators Joe Manchin and Jay Rockefeller to support the Inhofe Resolution. The EPA’s Utility MACT rule is the agency’s most expensive regulation ever for power plants. It imposes steep costs to the economy and endangers hundreds of thousands of jobs nationwide, with many of them right here in West Virginia.

ENVIRON International Corporation (ENVIRON) today completed an analysis on behalf of the National Mining Association (NMA) of the anticipated economic impacts associated with the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement’s (OSM) proposed rewrite of the Stream Buffer Zone Rule (the Stream Protection Rule)  and other provisions of the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act (SMCRA).  The key findings of the analysis are as follows:

By Daniel McGroarty

For fans of the Jason Bourne films, The Bourne Dominion offers its latest plot with a "ripped from the headlines" feel: Terrorists have hatched a plot to destroy the United States' only Rare Earths mine, allowing China to extend its dominion over resources critical to everything from wind power and electric car batteries to U.S. advanced weapons systems. Only Jason Bourne can save the day.

Problem is, the plot's just not credible.

Not because we aren't deeply dependent on China for our Rare Earths needs - we are, with China providing 97 percent of global Rare Earth production at present, a fact of which Bourne's fictional national security advisors are painfully aware. And not because few understand the importance of Rare Earths or rare metals more generally - few do: witness Bourne's fictional president sputtering during an Oval Office briefing, "Rare Earths? Just what the hell are Rare Earths?"