Jason Bostic (WVCA VP) spent several days this week in Washington, DC attending the initial Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) meetings that were held to review the two reports that serve as the basis for EPA’s April 1, 2010 Guidance on regulating coal mining in Appalachia under Sections 402 and 404 of the federal Clean Water Act.  

The Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) weekly report indicates that U.S. metallurgical exports for May 2010 were 262% ahead of those from a year ago, May 2009 (5.8 million tons v. 1.6 million tons).  Met exports for the months January through May 2010 were 115% ahead of those for the same period a year ago (25 million tons v. 11.6 million tons).  For the same 5 month period, steam exports were down 20% year to year and imports were 18.4% less.  West Virginia production, for the 52 weeks through the week ending July 17, 2010 was down by 9% as compared to the same period in 2009. 

Former chief counsel to the Governor, Carte Goodwin, was sworn in as West Virginia’s newest United States Senator on Tuesday in Washington, DC.  Carte was excited as well as somewhat intimidated when we talked with him Monday evening as he was preparing to become the youngest Senator in the United States at the age of 36.  The average age of the Senate is 66 years old.

Friends of Coal will join with FACES next Tuesday in Beckley for a press conference bringing attention to the complexities of open houses being held by the federal Office of Surface Mining (OSM) in several eastern locations.  The open houses are a newly devised and quite complicated procedure for the agency to get public input on their proposed environmental impact statement on the stream buffer zone rule.  The press conference will be held at the Beckley Convention Center (Armory) at 10:30 a.m.

The State Journal’s annual 40-page coal section is now available. The section features articles on surface mining, mining rules and regulations, the Friends of Coal and Faces of Coal organizations, current production and employment data, as well as profiles of current Association Chairman Jim Bunn and Gilbert’s own James H. “Buck” Harless.

The section is available either by subscription to The State Journal, purchase of the publication at your local newsstand or you can request a copy by calling the Association at 304-342-3143.