The comprehensive mine safety bill (HB 4531) passed earlier this year by the Legislature officially took effect this week on June 4^th.  HB 4531 establishes a myriad of new mine safety and training requirements including mandatory drug testing which will be implemented by subsequent rule by December 31^st of this year.

An “Enrolled” copy of HB 4531 as passed by the West Virginia Legislature and signed into statutory law by Governor Tomblin is available at the Association Office.

The 2012 Friends of Coal Auto Fair is set for July 20 – 22 at the Beckley YMCA Paul Cline Memorial Sports Center. 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 information was sent yesterday (Wednesday). Please check your e-mail to be sure you received it?

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.

At the very same time that U.S. electricity producers are slashing their use of coal for economic and environmental reasons, countries around the world are dramatically increasing their use of the fuel. A look at coal and electricity demand in locations from Hanoi, Vietnam to Dusseldorf, Germany shows that the rest of the world is not going beyond coal. In fact, just the opposite is happening.

Between 2001 and 2010, U.S. coal consumption fell by 5 percent. But over that same time period, global coal consumption soared by 47 percent, or the equivalent of 23 million barrels of oil per day. Put another way, over the past decade or so, global coal consumption increased by about the same amount as the growth in oil, natural gas, and nuclear combined.