The Friends of Coal petition to protect America's coal jobs has now collected more than 12,500 letters of support through our convenient online tool.

The online tool allows you to file your comments calling on EPA to rescind its job-killing regulations that are halting the construction of new coal-fired power plants and essentially forcing the closure of existing plants.  The letters are sent directly to the EPA's official comments e-mail address. You have until December 1, 2014 to register your comments.          

Coal production in the United States was up 3.2 percent for the week ending October 18^th from the same week last year, according to weekly figures released by the US Energy Information Agency (EIA).  Production for the week was up slightly less than 600,000 tons to 18.7 million tons, from 18.1 million tons for the same week in 2013. Production for the previous 52 weeks, however, remains down, off by 6/10^th of one percent or slightly less than 7 million tons, compared to the same period last year, 982 million tons.

WVCA President Bill Raney was a speaker at Thursday’s session of the Governor’s Energy Summit at Stonewall Resort in Roanoke. Raney’s presentation focused on the current state of West Virginia’s coal industry. He addressed the economic impact of the industry as well as the regulatory and production challenges it faces as we move into the future. Raney told the crowd of government and energy leaders that it is vital to the state’s economic future to take the steps needed to make sure West Virginia coal remains competitive and a foundation of the nation’s energy portfolio.

The West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection has filed the final version of the interpretive rule outlining how it will implement the new Aboveground Storage Tank Program using three risk-based categories for tanks.

This rule was filed with the Secretary of State’s Office this week following a 30-day public comment period that concluded with an Oct. 9 public hearing. The DEP took the submitted comments into account before finalizing the rule and made several changes based on the feedback received. 

Next week we’re having Membership “Town Hall” meetings in Beckley (Monday) and Morgantown (Friday) to brief our members on the status of issues confronting our industry today as well as the candidates endorsed for the November 4^th election.  We’ve titled these meetings as “Actions not Words” to indicate a frank and open discussion about issues, candidates and matters that keep our production costs high.  We hope members in each of these regions will join us, because your input guides the issues that need addressed.