Congressman McKinley will be offering a Motion to Instruct (MTI) Conferees next week to the Highways’ Bill Conferees asking them to continue bipartisan negotiation and to resolve this legislation instead of pulling the “fly-ash” provision and hoping a separate bill could be passed later on.  With the pending lawsuit and the fact that the Obama Administration did not issue a veto threat against 2273 when it passed the House in October or when it was included as an amendment to the House Highways’ Bill, Mr. McKinley plans to offer the MTI on the House floor to again show the bipartisan support for this measure.

According to the Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) weekly report, U.S. metallurgical coal exports for April 2012 are nearly 30% more than April 2011 exports.  Last month’s steam coal exports were 65% ahead of April, a year ago.  Comparing the first four months of 2012 to 2011, met coal exports are up by nearly 9% and steam coal increased by more than 30%. West Virginia’s year-to-date production (week ending June 9) is down 7.9%.

The 2012 Friends of Coal Auto Fair is set for July 20-22 at the Beckley YMCA Paul Cline Memorial SportsCenter. Saturday Night Concert line-up is Ronnie Dunn with special guest James Wesley and is being sponsored by Alpha Natural Resources. For concert tickets, pre-registration for the car show and vendors, please go to: http://www.friendsofcoalautofair.com/

Registration is beginning to roll in for the Annual meeting at The Greenbrier.  If you did not receive registration information please let us know. sdavison@wvcoal.com

The Friends of Coal Ladies Auxiliary has a new web site and are asking everyone to visit the new web site www.friendsofcoalladies.com as many times as you can.  For each time you visit, the web site moves up so when you type “coal” into your search engine the web site will be one of the top listed in your search.   The site also hosts a full store for purchase of FOC items and wearing apparel.