09Jan

Be Cautious with Funding of Black Lung Trust: Coal Industry at Stake

Your recent editorial misrepresents both the coal industry and the state of benefits for American miners. Handled incorrectly, future funding for the Black Lung Disability Trust Fund could do unintended damage to coal country. It’s a mistake we should be careful not to make. The mining industry pays taxes into the Trust Fund through an […]
04Jan

The Ongoing Struggle to Correct the Damage of Government Overreach

It wasn’t all that long ago that coal fueled more than half of the nation’s electricity generation. Coal’s retreat from that position hasn’t come by accident, nor has it come without consequences. While some pundits have pointed to the marketplace as the cause of coal’s slide, that’s a convenient tale that barely hints at the […]
02Jan

PJM Delineates the Value of Coal in America

Via Real Clear Energy: Serving 13 states and Washington, D.C. (a total of 65 million people), the PJM Interconnection recently concluded that serious problems could arise in five years under a scenario where the rapid, large-scale closures of coal and nuclear plants (baseload 24/7 sources) are exposed by fuel supply issues and an extreme weather event, such as […]
28Dec

Long Overdue Proposed Revisions to MATS Regulation Welcome, Highlight the Damage of Prior Government Overreach

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) today announced it will reassess the punitive and unbalanced Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS), the National Mining Association (NMA) said today. “We welcome the agency’s proposal to revisit what stands as perhaps the largest regulatory accounting fraud perpetrated on American consumers,” said Hal Quinn, NMA President and CEO. “By […]
21Dec

Let’s Not Pollute our Waterways with Unnecessary Federal Regulation

Via Inside Sources: Is it possible to have cleaner waterways across the country and, at the same time, less federal regulation?  Fortunately, for a wide swath of the economy — from farming to mining, home building to construction — the answer is yes.  Not just any water quality policy will accomplish these twin goals, however.  […]
20Dec

Technology, Not Taxes

Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming had an op-ed this week in The New York Times where he called for leaning on technology, not carbon taxes, to cut emissions. His argument is grounded in reality – the reality that people both here and abroad don’t want to want to be taxed to use affordable, reliable energy […]
13Dec

Trump Rolls Back Anti-Coal Mandate at EPA — Here’s Why It’s Reasonable

Via LifeZette: The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 2015 mandated the use of carbon capture and storage (CCS) for any future U.S. coal plants. This effectively blocked the development of new coal units, since CCS is not yet commercially viable. In effect, the EPA’s decision was another example of federal overreach designed to further limit […]
13Dec

Wind and Solar Clash with Energy Reality

Via The Hill: In the name of protecting the environment, some public and political leaders want most of our electrical energy to come from renewables. The reality is that wind and solar combined supply only 17 percent of electricity-generating capacity in the U.S. and even less globally. This has not deterred environmental organizations and some […]
12Dec

The Energy Tax Revolt is Worldwide

Just hours before French President Macron – facing the worst protests in France in decades – retreated from a proposed fuel tax hike, The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board presciently wrote, “nothing reveals the disconnect between ordinary voters and an aloof political class more than carbon taxation.” The disconnect is very real. Pollsters have found […]
12Dec

America’s Increasingly Fragile Electric Grid

Via The Washington Times: One of the lesser known economic successes of the modern era is the U.S. electric grid. For the most part, enough electricity-generating capacity to meet the nation’s power needs is available at the flip of a switch. America’s power plants continue to perform at high levels of safety and reliability. The […]