Liberal Patriot

A Special Series- The Myth of Cheap Coal Energy, A Paradigm Of Greed

Coal Cash

J.G. Schwam - September 20, 2004

Corporate interest is an insufficient reason for a modern nation to abdicate its responsibility to promote environmental and fiscal policies that protect the interests of its citizenry at large. Today, these interests are served by a broader set of priorities than what can be defined solely as perpetually rising stock prices and mutual fund values. The Bush administration takes pride in its rollback of decades of progress toward corporate responsibility in disposal of waste and the utilization of natural resources. It is not enough to point out the rollbacks. This administration has created an environment that encourages and enables the EPA, DOI and US Army Corps of Engineers (USACOE) to both ignore and prevent the enforcement existing laws. In the same effort these agencies abdicate their responsibility to investigate, sanction and prevent the violation of laws written to prevent the destruction of resources that benefit both industry and individual. The purpose of environmental law is to ensure that the use of all resources and those uses ancillary to their utilization remain viable and are well managed and safe for use by parties both corporate and public.

Under the administration of George W. Bush the EPA has illegally rewritten the Clean Water Act.

In 2002 The West Virginia Highlands Conservancy and a group of citizens won a lawsuit in the US District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia. Chief Judge of that court Charles H. Haden II issued a ruling that would prevent mountaintop removal strip mine operators from violating the Clean Water Act by expanding the dumping of mine wastes into streambeds without specific environmental impact studies specific to each permit to do so. The suit alleged that the USACOE use of nationwide “dredge and fill” permit designed for river and harbor dredging cannot applied under the Clean Water Act to create sludge ponds and dump mine tailings into streams beds.

A prior by ruling by Judge Haden in 1998 under the Clinton Administration required a preliminary draft EIS that complied with outlined restrictions for mining and valley fills. Enter George W. Bush and his appointee as deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior, Steven J. Griles. Griles a former mining industry lobbyist promptly reversed the postion taken by the Clinton administrations EPA and Bureau of Surface Mining after Judge Haden’s 1998 ruling. Griles removed any significant reforms and reduced the 1998 document to what one Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) official referred to as nothing more than "permit process tinkering," because it focused only on easing coal mine permitting. In the mean time Mountaintop removal mining (MTR) and the valley fills continue to expand, to the tune the permits issued at the rate of hundreds of acres per month.

On July 8, 2004 U.S. District Judge Joseph R. Goodwin ruled that the USCOE could no longer approve mining valley fills through a streamlined permit process meant only for activities that cause minor environmental damage.

Late in July "The US solicitor general on behalf of the USDOJ re-valuated the legal decision that came out of Judge Goodwin’s Huntington, WV court. He has decided to appeal this decision that threw out nationwide USCOE permit No. 21 and put a halt to eleven specific general corps permit authorizations challenged in the suit and suspend those for valley fills “on which construction has not commenced as of today, July 8, 2004” . Coal field observers say this has not occurred. The valley fills continue at a rapid pace.

At issue is a July ruling by U.S. District Judge Joseph Goodwin that prevented coal companies from attaining permits from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers allowing them to discharge rock, dirt and other fill material into mountain streams.

Goodwin ruled the permits violate the Clean Water Act. Under this ruling, additional permits may not be issued. Goodwin’s order suspended all existing authorizations for valley fills. This ruling applied to the permits in the 23 counties comprising the court's jurisdiction. Most of the biggest mountaintop removal strip mining operations in West Virginia are in these counties. The largest of each of West Virginia’s three biggest MTR strip mine operations, operated by AT Massey Coal, Peabody Coal and Arch Coal are within these counties.

Why would the solicitor general’s office get involved in judicial rulings that attempt to force compliance with or stop illegally applied permits invoked in an attempt to the get around or ignore the Clean Water Act?

Since 1990 the coal industry has donated $2,858,552 to Democrats and $11,905,233 to Republicans.

In the 2004 election cycle to date coal mining giant Peabody Energy spent $540,309 on political contributions. 4% went to Democrats, 96% to Republicans making Peabody the top political campaign financier in the coal industry. Since then Peabody has clearly been able accelerate permitting to aggressively expand mountaintop removal strip mines in Kentucky and West Virginia.

In 2004 Peabody Energy PAC donated over $74,000.00 in soft money to Republican candidates including $4,000 to George W. Bush contrasted by $13,000.00 to Democrats but not a dime to John Kerry. On 7/21/2000 The Peabody Group it’s parent company donated $250,000 Republican National Committee, coincidence? No, the GOP’s agenda, big money and big energy over quality of life and responsible environmental stewardship is clear. Let them deny it. The money trail and the deeds of DOI secretary Gail Norton and her deputy, Stephen J. Griles stand witness.

Another big West Virginia strip mine operator AT Massey Energy also has it’s own PAC to unabashedly pass around cash to support it’s interests. In the 2002 election cycle Massey President and Chairman Donald L. Blankenship donated $5,000.00 to his own PAC, more than the total reported 2002 assets of the PAC. According to Massey PAC’s report to the Federal Election Commission (FEC) no legitimate donations to federal candidates were made or accepted by Massey PAC. So where did $4399.00 difference in Massey PAC’s July 2004 cash on hand and receipts for the period go? Perhaps only Don Blankenship knows. This year AT Massey donated 100% of its political donations directly to Republican candidates.

Way ahead of Massey the smaller but perhaps most aggressive strip mine operator in West Virginia is strip mining giant the Arch Coal Company. Arch, operator of the largest most destructive coal mine in the state, the vast Mingo Logan mine gave over $90,000 to GOP candidates and less than 2% of that amount of Democrats and of course not a dime to Kerry. In 2004 Arch’s PAC donated $107,750, 15% to Democrats and 85% to Republicans.

Arch Coal operator of the giant Mingo Logan MTR project that has stripped over 6000 acres and reduced the height of some of the mountains under mine by at least as much as the height a 40 story building. Since 1998 this project alone has illegally buried tens of dozens of miles of mountain stream beds forever and leached or perhaps even dumped thousands of tons highly toxic coal processing chemicals such as sodium hypochlorite and permanganates into the streams. Named for the counties it covers this project has leveled nearly 15% of the area of both counties and it continues to expand by way of permits that violate the Clean Water Act. Three US District Court rulings calling for the operation to cease and review or comply with existing laws have been served upon Arch. They have done neither. Huge political donations like these in one year alone mean they have virtually nothing to fear from regulation from an Office of Surface Mining headed by one of their own, for mining industry lobbyist Stephen J. Griles. Now in charge or regulating the industry he formally represented instead of regulating industry and enforcing the law, Griles protects the Republican parties financial interest by failing to force compliance with judicial rulings and staid law upon the company’s his office is charged with regulating.

Under state and federal law, coal companies cannot mine within 300 feet of homes or 100 feet of roads. After the death of a toddler in the community of Inman, TN some believe those limits aren’t enough.

Before dawn on Aug. 20, a boulder came loose where crews were working on a strip-mine access road of mine site in Inman Tennessee. The half-ton rock plummeted 600 feet down a hillside, crashing through the wall of the home of three year old Jeremy Kyle Davidson killing him as he slept in his bed. Recently state and federal mine safety officers called it an accident saying there would be no investigation into the incident to determine if any negligence occurred on the part of the mine operator.

In a personal account Chris Irwin, a resident of the neighboring town Appalachia, WV describes incident that killed

the toddler in Inman.

The boulder plowed right through the back of the house. It was strange in that we saw no damage to the fern covered forested hillside above the house. So the theory must be that the dozer operator pushed the boulder off the hillside. It bounced-and flew over the tree line bouncing right at the wall of the house when it smashed in.

The operator was given two citations for pushing rock, soil and perimeter markers outside the permitted mine site. Recently local officials announced as well that there would be no further investigations into the practices that caused this tragedy.

I personally have seen strip mining operations in Boone and Lincoln County West Virginia that are barely twenty feet from the road. These situations are not a secret in West Virginia. The infractions are simply overlooked. The mine operator’s solution is to lobby the state and counties to make state roads private so there is no risk to the public associated with the use of these roads. While in the mean time, children are killed, drivers run of the road by sludge spills and rockslides from mine cracks formed when former deep mines illegally filled with toxic sludge and waste water and rockslides cause by blasting ,

If some such roads state or county roads through the mountains are privatized be the effect would be to cut off families form each other. Some would have to drive 30 to 50 miles or more to visit relatives instead of what is now a trip of 10 miles or less.

"That boy getting killed, it disturbed me awful bad," said Larry Bush, a former federal mine inspector. "They shouldn’t be allowed to mine within a half-mile of your house. They’ve got a right to mine it, but peoples’ rights should come first."

Residents never have a chance against coal companies and state regulators, Bush said.

"They are not going to do anything against a coal company," he said. "I was a federal inspector, so I know what they can do and what they should do. None of them do it." "They defend them," (the mine operators) Bush said. "They are supposed to be there for the people, but it’s just the opposite. You’re the bad guy just for being there." It looks like the state and federal government ignoring residents' calls for stricter scrutiny of strip mines.

Barney Reilly said he sees the same problem. As a member of the Dickenson County Citizens Committee, he works with energy companies to protect the environment and quality of life. "What they are enforcing are the rules and regulations they [the mining company lobbyists] wrote," Reilly said. Coal companies and their lobbyists have too much influence on how laws and regulations are written and enforced, he said.

"They say laws allow them to produce coal," Reilly said. "We say the laws say protect the environment and the people. The (state Division of Mined Land Reclamation) sits there and never challenges anybody on it." Other former federal mine safety officials including former West Virginia based inspector MSHA inspector Jack Spadaro and his former boss Mine Safety and Health Administration commissioner Davitt MacAteer have spoken against the apparent policy of the Bush administration, to ignore enforcement of these laws.

These scathing examples of the overt influence of money and power over law while not unprecedented in American history have escalated and appear to simply have become policy in the Appalachian coal fields. Neither state for federal officials appear willing to report, investigate nor prosecute what may be an unprecedented level infractions of federal and state mining and environmental laws in this region by the coal industry.

Through the expansion of mountaintop removal strip mining in the eastern United States the coal industry is creating an expanding ecological disaster of will soon prove to be one of record proportions. While these companies leach thousands of pounds of mercury, manganese, nickel sulfates other industrial toxins weekly into the Ohio River watershed the Bush administration and the GOP have devastated the highly successful Super fund law that provided billions from the polluters themselves, to clean up the messes they left in the past. Today while they create huge levels of pollution instead of enforcing laws that would prevent it, the Bush administration has shifted the vast expense of cleanup away from the industry itself and not only tacitly condones the pollution but expects the taxpayers to bear the immense expense of cleaning up pollution that could be prevented.

In the late 90’s the Bergen County, NJ Association for the Advancement of Science and Technology reported that in 1990 monies for the Trust Fund totaled $15.2 billion. At the same time the total cleanup bill for all Superfund sites was expected to reach over $1 trillion over the next 50 years.

Not only is the Bush administration failing provide adequate funding for existing cleanups while allowing practices worse than those of the past to expand, they are slowing the pace of existing cleanups by de-funding the programs to the point where they cannot proceed at a measurable pace. In their July 27, 2004 Superfund Report the Sierra Club wrote

Instead of helping to ensure protection for communities living amongst toxic waste sites, the Bush administration has refused to support reauthorizing the corporate fees on polluting industries as a means to fund the clean up of Superfund toxic waste sites. As a result, the administration has effectively slowed the pace of waste site cleanups, put American communities at risk, and let polluting industries off the hook.

Under the Bush administration, completed cleanups² have fallen by 50% during the Bush administration compared with the pace of cleanups between 1997 and 2000.³ Site listings have slowed down as well; the Bush administration has listed an average of 23 Superfund sites a year compared with an average of 30 sites from 1993 to 2000, a drop of 23 percent.⁴ Funding in 2002 and 2003 was the lowest for Superfund since 1988. In the early 1990s, the Superfund program averaged $1.6 billion a year - about $2.1 billion in today's dollars. Today's $1.4 billion Superfund budget represents a 30% reduction in spending power from 1992 levels. ⁵

By opposing collection of polluter pays fees, the administration has increased the share of the program's costs carried by regular taxpayers from 18 percent in 1995 to a proposed 79 percent or more in 2004. In 2005, taxpayers will pick up virtually the entire bill for the cleanup of orphaned toxic waste sites.⁷ The administration's policies mark a dramatic reversal of the standards that have guided the cleanup of toxic waste sites in this country for more than 20 years.⁸ The Bush administration is making taxpayers pay more and requiring polluters to pay less, while cleaning up fewer of the nation's worst toxic waste sites.

Democrats in the Senate recently reported that The Superfund trust fund received about $1.5 billion per year before the legislative authority to collect the taxes expired at the end of 1995. The source of these funds was from a corporate environmental income tax and excise taxes on petroleum and certain chemicals. The petroleum and chemical companies that paid these taxes expanded revenues and posted healthy profit throughout the period they paid into the fund. Today the trust fund the trust fund is expected to run out of money in 2004 - having dwindled from a high of $3.8 billion in 1996 to $28 million this year. The Bush Administration and congressional Republicans have sided with industry in opposing reinstatement of the Superfund tax. In 1993, Superfund comprised 22% of the EPA's budget, making Superfund the EPA's single largest program

Today Bush’s EPA has earmarked a paltry $1.4 billion for the Superfund, which, according to the EPA while this represents a 48 percent boost in the fund's remedial program before two prior Bush budgets virtually de-funded the the trust entirely. However. unlike in prior years the trust is funded entirely by private taxpayer dollars not the taxes paid by polluters on revenues derived form the sale of pollutants and other corporate taxes, as in the past, some of which have since fallen into loopholes and remain uncollected.

The coal and mining industry’s it should be noted that while some of he chemicals they use fell under the superfund law, they have never been held sufficiently accountable for the damage and pollution they cause. They stand behind nineteenth century laws written in a era when the impact of small scale practices the existing technology allowed pale in comparison today's, which strip, destroy and likely irrevocably pollute hundreds of acres of rich forest and nearby homes monthly.

So how do the Bush and administration and the GOP get away with failing to carry out the law and the rulings of the federal courts against illegal environmental abuses and failures to comply with the mandated EIS and orders to cease? They just patently ignore them. The money trail is the impetus. The problems that they have chosen to do so.

We must demand that our legislators and future president, John Kerry work toward a building a nation of modern laws and legal and environmental policies defined by good practice and good science not one driven by narrow interests that can pay for selective legislation and worse selective enforcement. Our future demands it.

This is the second article in a series of articles on the true cost of so called cheap coal energy.

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