Sees Drop in Face of World Economic Decline

CHARLESTON – Coal remained the state’s leading export and the West Virginia remained the nation’s top coal exporting state in the nation in 2013 according to data just released by the West Virginia Department of Commerce.

In 2013, West Virginia’s exported approximately $4.4 billion of coal to nations around the world. However, West Virginia’s coal exports declined by 40 percent from their 2012 levels due to the decline in demand resulting from the decline of the world’s economy.  Still, coal accounted for more than half the state’s total exports in 2013.

CHARLESTON – Following is a statement issued today by the West Virginia Coal Association regarding the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision not to hear the appeal of the 4th Circuit of the United States District Court decision regarding the Spruce Mine case.
 
“We are disappointed that the U.S. Supreme Court has decided not to hear the appeal, filed Mingo-Logan Coal Company and signed onto by 27 states’ attorneys general, of this past year’s decision by the U.S. District Court’s 4th Circuit in the Spruce Mine case,” said Bill Raney, president of the West Virginia Coal Association. “We believe it is clear that the EPA has far exceeded its authority in its revocation of an existing permit in which the permittee was abiding by the terms of the permit. We continue to believe this was an arbitrary and capricious decision that has destroyed the trust that required for any business dependent on a government-granted permit system to operate.

The Friends of Coal and the West Virginia Coal Association recently launched mobile-friendly versions of their websites. Above is a screen shot for both websites’ mobile applications. You can add either site to your phone’s icons.  When using it, it will function just like a native phone application. We’re still working on the layout of both sites, but they are active as of last week and easy to use.

As more and more people are using their phones as their primary access to the internet, we believed it was necessary to improve the functionality of our sites and add an easier-to-use mobile interface. This is part of our ongoing effort to improve the web-presence of our Association and the Friends of Coal.

The latest billboard that we have posted on our two primary (FOC-WV and FOC National) is attached below.  The post is doing very well.  In 13 hours it has been viewed almost 18,256 times on the FOC-National page and 11,400 times on the FOC-WV page. Looks like this one is going viral very quickly and likely have a good run over the weekend.    See the full billboard at the Friends of Coal facebook page  https://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Friends-of-Coal/167786029923661 and the Friends of Coal West Virginia page https://www.facebook.com/#!/friendsofcoal

The National Friends of Coal page has a following of 26,074 people while the Friends of Coal West Virginia page has 17,255 likes. 

We have been informed by the Department of Motor Vehicles that a FOC motorcycle license plate has been approved and will be available for application shortly.  We will keep you posted on this exciting news.  This will be the FIRST specialty plate for motorcycles in WV.