Press
- Parent Category: News
The Friends of Coal will be co-sponsoring and presenting at the 2010 West Virginia Construction and Design Expo March 24 and 25 in Charleston. The event is a major part of the annual convention season and draws more than 6,000 attendees from across the country (last year attendees were from 26 states). The event begins at 10 am each day.
- Parent Category: News
The Friends of Coal and the West Virginia Coal Association played host to another group tour by Wheeling Jesuit University this past Tuesday. This time the students were from Nebraska and were interested in getting a complete picture of the practice of mining, its economic impact on the state and the role it can play in building a new future for the people of the coalfields region.
- Parent Category: News
Legislation introduced in the U.S. House by Rep. Frank Palone (D-N.J.) and in the U.S. Senate by Sens. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) and Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) will severely restrict all types of coal mining, threatening thousands of high-paying coal jobs.
ACT now and urge Congress to reject the so-called "Clean Water Protection Act" (H.R. 1310) and the "Appalachian Restoration Act" (S. 696).
These bills jeopardize the future of domestic coal mining and will saddle American consumers and businesses with massive energy price hikes. Hundreds of thousands of mining jobs could be lost and many projects that help stimulate the economy will never be brought to fruition.
ACT now and urge Congress to reject misguided and ill-informed efforts to prohibit mining practices that create good American jobs and help power our homes and businesses with abundant and affordable domestic energy.
To write your members of Congress, please click here.
- Parent Category: News
Newly released data by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) show West Virginia by far continues to be the leading source of coal distributed to foreign destinations.
In 2008, the most recent year for which EIA data are available, West Virginia shipped almost 26 million tons of coal, accounting for more than 39 percent of total U.S. coal distributed to foreign markets. 2008 also marked the fourth consecutive year that West Virginia coal shipments to foreign markets have increased.
In total, the U.S. shipped approximately 66 million tons of coal to foreign markets, with production east of the Mississippi River accounting for 85 percent of those shipments.
More information is available at: EIA Coal Distribution Data.
NMA staff contact: Leslie Coleman at (202) 463-9780 or lcoleman@nma.org
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- Parent Category: News
- Parent Category: News
Register-Herald Reporter
Mountain State University students as well as community members will have an opportunity to participate in a forum designed to address important issues regarding coal mining Wednesday in Carter hall. The forum, title, “Appalachian Coal Mining Under Attack,” will feature a presentation by Gene Kitts, senior vice president for mining service of International Coal Group Inc (ICG), followed by an open question and answer session.
“we’re doing this just to offer the public an opportunity to learn what is happening in today’s political environment and social environment (in relation) to the coal industry because it is very important to the economy of West Virginia,” said Dr. Norman Hinkle, dean of MSU’s School of Business & Technology.
Kitts’ presentation will include information including the progress made in safety, productivity and environmental protection in the past two centuries as well as the future of the coal industry.
Information provided will be “timely and critical” to those interested in West Virginia’s economy.
“Most people have heard a lot about cap-and-trade and he’ll (Kitts) talk about that and how it could negatively affect the coal industry,” Hinkle said.
Although Kitts will talk about the importance of the coal industry, Hinkle said he wants to “be very clear that we’re not taking a pro-coal stand,” he said. “We’re just doing this to offer the public and our students an opportunity to know what’s going on.”
The forum is scheduled to begin at 1:15 p.m. For more information, contact Hinkle at 304-929-1320.
- Parent Category: News
Charleston Gazette - January 12, 2010
CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- West Virginia's leading lawmakers said Tuesday that protecting the coal industry will be their priority during this year's regular legislative session, which starts Wednesday.
Senate Majority Leader Truman Chafin, D-Mingo, said the Obama administration and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency are taking a "harsh stand" against coal.
"They have a whole new attitude about the coal industry," Chafin said Tuesday during the West Virginia Chamber's 2010 Legislative Issues & Outlook Conference in Charleston. "We just have to stand united."
- Parent Category: News
Beckley Register Herald - January 12, 2010
CHARLESTON — A southern West Virginia lawmaker feels the ultimate goal of the Environmental Protection Agency is to wipe out the entire coal industry by initially outlawing the mountaintop removal practice via uncompromising regulation.
“It’s an attack on the whole industry,” Delegate Steve Kominar, D-Mingo, said in Monday’s interims session.
His criticism of the federal agency came after lawmakers heard updates on improving brownfields in a meeting of the Joint Commission on Economic Development.
Read more: Delegate Kominar Says EPA Out to Shut Down Coal Industry
- Parent Category: News
It is unconscionable to me that West Virginians anywhere could be so unwilling to accept the fact that coal built this state, and will continue to build it’s future, that they would stoop to protesting the Friends of Coal Ladies Auxiliary’s Coal in the Classroom program. My bet is, as with most environmental socialists, that they are not West Virginians at all, but transplants from another state. And to have the unmitigated gall to complain about “indoctrination” of our children, when these environmental socialists have been “indoctrinating” our children to their misguided and evil plans for the future of our nation for the last three decades at least, they are showing just how small-minded and vile they really are.
Mr. Webb should shut his mouth while his brain is disengaged for a change, and learn to accept the fact this nation simply cannot afford to pay for the socialist agenda, be it in the environmental arena or the political arena. Kudos to the Raleigh County Board of Education for their fair and balanced mindset for allowing our children to begin to see the real picture, and I hope they have the fortitude, which I doubt, to stand up to these repugnant environmental socialists and continue to allow our children to see the real world, and learn where our power really comes from.
Larry Hanna Jr.
Renick
Our Readers Speak — Dec. 31, 2009
Beckley Register-Herald