This morning, Alpha Natural Resources, one of the world’s leading producers of coal, announced plans to idle eight mines and lay off 1,200 workers in Virginia, West Virginia and Pennsylvania, some as soon as today.  It’s another unfortunate chapter in what has been a very difficult few years for the American coal industry. 

It is against this grim backdrop that the House of Representatives will take up H.R. 3409, the “Stop the War on Coal Act.” The bill is scheduled for Rules Committee debate Wednesday and the House floor shortly thereafter. H.R. 3409 takes aim at several federal regulations that, if allowed to go forward, would effectively kick the coal industry while it’s down.  Regulations like EPA’s recently-proposed greenhouse gas New Source Performance Standards, which effectively ban the construction of new conventional coal-fired power plants.  Or the “Utility MACT” regulation, a $10 billion annual hit to the economy that costs 40 percent more than all of EPA’s power plant-sector air regulations combined.

The newest addition to the coal industry’s regulatory overload is the Office of Surface Mining’s “Stream Buffer Zone Rule,” which is expected to cause a 20-30 percent drop in coal production in the Eastern United States and a 50 percent drop in underground mines nationwide, putting at risk more than 20,000 coal mining and related jobs.

Coal is one of the nation’s most abundant energy resources and a vital part of our efforts to meet our energy and transportation needs. Coal generates a significant percentage of our nation’s electricity, and maintaining coal in a diverse national energy portfolio is in the national economic interest. The NAM strongly supports H.R. 3409, which would protect a reliable, affordable and available part of our nation’s energy mix from overregulation.

Ross Eisenberg is vice president of energy and resources policy, National Association of Manufacturers.

The Energy Information Agency in March published the break down in sources of U.S. Electricity Generation, 2011. It showed 42 percent of all electricity in this country is generated by coal. Next is natural gas at 25 percent. Nuclear is 19 percent, followed by hydropower at 8 percent. Wind produces 3 percent of our electricity with biomass produces about 1 percent. While petroleum, geothermal and solar all produce less than 1 percent each. These are all valuable components of our energy strategy.

Earlier this week I noticed that on “all of the above” section of President Obama’s campaign website, coal and hydropower have been left out! Coal plays such a vital role in our nation’s energy supply at 42 percent. It has to be a part of the conversation about an “all of the above” energy strategy.

By taking clean coal completely off the table, you could see an increase in electricity prices which will directly harm manufacturers’ ability to compete and create jobs. Taking coal offline through the EPA regulations is already threatening our power grid and causing reliability problems.

Later in the week I heard that coal was back on the President’s “all of the above” list so I pulled up the webpage and sure enough coal was back “in” but where was still no hydropower.

Hydropower produces more electricity than all the other renewables combined. According to EIA over half of the hydropower generated in this country comes from three states: Washington, Oregon and California.  Hydropower is clean, renewable and affordable.

Manufacturers need energy to produce products. Without energy this country cannot produce anything. We need energy from all sources and we cannot afford to take one source out of the mix. So when you see the phrase “all-of –the-above” I guess you need to ask yourself the question, “that depends on how you define the word all?” 

Chip Yost is associate vice president of energy and resources policy, National Association of Manufacturers.

The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee has not been very active on examining Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations that impact manufacturers, but today the Committee’s Clean Air and Nuclear Safety Subcommittee held a hearing on the Agency’s recently-finalized Utility MACT rule.

This rule is of particular concern for manufacturers because it is expected to increase electricity costs and may jeopardize grid reliability as coal-fueled power plants are taken off-line. We’ve already begun to see plant closures resulting from this overreaching rule (see our post on the GenOn Energy plant closures).

Despite concerns from utility companies that more time is needed to comply with the rule, Gina McCarthy, EPA Assistant Administrator for the Office of Air and Radiation, stated that the three-year time frame (plus the possibility of an additional year from the state permitting authority) was sufficient. The NAM has been a strong supporter of increasing the compliance time frame, so coal-fueled power plants are able to install new emission control technology without compromising grid reliability. You can read our comments on the proposed rule here.

Rob James, a City Council member from Avon Lake, Ohio, noted that his community is already feeling the effects of this rule. Avon Lake will lose 80 jobs from the GenOn Energy plant closure, and the local economy will also feel the pinch from lost tax revenue and the increase in electricity prices.

We are pleased that this Senate panel is examining the economic impacts of this rule, but more needs to be done. We strongly urge Senators to support Sen. Inhofe’s (R-OK) Resolution of Disapproval (S. J. Res. 37) that would repeal the rule, sending the EPA back to the drawing board to develop a more achievable regulation (read out letter to the subcommittee here). We expect a vote on this resolution in June or July – yet another opportunity for the Senate to show its support for manufacturing jobs.

Over the weekend, former Missouri Senator Kit Bond wrote in the Southeast Missourian about the Environmental Protection Agency’s Cross-State Air Pollution Rule, which requires power plants to reduce emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide.  (News coverage of the new rule here and here.)

Senator Bond writes that this new regulation will have a serious impact on coal-fired power plants:

Every time an American family turns on a light switch, heats a home in winter or air conditions that home in the summer, that family will pay higher utility bills. Workers who depend on coal-fired plants for paychecks will face unemployment when plants are closed. Rural communities that depend on tax revenue from utilities to fund schools will struggle to keep doors open for students when coal-fired facilities are shut down due to the cost of complying with EPA’s regulatory onslaught. And farmers and businesses — from the local pharmacy to drugstore — will face higher energy prices, making it more difficult to stay in business — let alone create jobs.

Senator Bond notes that, together with the Utility MACT regulations, this new rule will cost jobs. He writes,

Recent analysis from the National Economic Research Associates shows that by 2020 the cost of just two of the coming onslaught of regulations the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule and the Utility Maximum Achievable Control Technology rules — will be the loss of 1.4 million jobs and an averageutility bill increase, of 11.5 percent — and in some cases, more than 20 percent.

For more about the EPA’s regulatory agenda, be sure the visit the NAM’s No New Regs site.

The EPA has pursued an aggressive regulatory agenda, creating barriers for job creation, future investment and expanded operations by placing burdensome and costly rules on manufacturers.

Coal-fired power plants are the latest facilities to face EPA’s most recent round of regulations. Last week, one of the largest electricity providers, the American Electric Power Company announced that they will have to shutter five plants to comply with these absurd mandates.

Increasing the cost of energy and killing jobs won’t stimulate the economy or help reduce unemployment.

An editorial in today’s Wall Street Journal cuts right to the chase:

The agency estimates that the utility rule will cost $10.9 billion annually but will yield as much as $140 billion in total health and environmental benefits. Sounds like a deal. But most of those alleged benefits are indirect—i.e., not from the mercury reductions that the rule is supposed to be for. Rather, they come from pollutants (“airborne particles”) that the EPA already regulates under other parts of the Clean Air Act. A good analogy is a corporation double-counting revenue.

The Journal concludes that the EPA is imposing “willful damage” and “the least Congress can do is force the EPA to delay the final rule…though a better option would be to junk it.”

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka speaks at a National Press Club luncheon on Friday, an appearance billed thusly:

Trumka will speak out on recent efforts to curb collective bargaining rights in several states, including Wisconsin and Ohio. He also will discuss the political outlook for the 2012 elections, and the impact of austerity budgets on local, state and federal workers.

All good topics. Here are a few others that the reporters could raise during the Q&A period that traditionally follows Press Club remarks.

• In a January 2010 National Press Club appearance you said: “I think you will see the Employee Free Choice Act pass in the first quarter of 2010.” And …”The president fully supports the Employee Free Choice Act, the Vice President fully supports the Employee Free Choice Act, a vast majority of the members of the House support the Employee Free Choice Act, a vast majority of the people of the Senate support the Employee Free Choice Act. And I think we are going to have the Employee Free Choice Act despite the determined efforts of the Republican Party.” So were you shining us on, deceiving your membership for tactical reasons, or are you just a lousy prognosticator? Did the failure of card check reflect organized labor’s lack of political influence? Your own lack of influence?



AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka addresses anti-coal crowd at April rally. (Photo: Energy Action Coalition)

• You began your career as a coal miner and served as President of the United Mine Workers before being elected to head the AFL-CIO. Yet at an April “Power Shift” rally in front of the White House, you joined environmental activists in demanding “clean energy” policies in which coal has no role. Demonstrators held signs declaring “Coal is Over” and “No More Coal!” (More photos here and here.) How can you, as a union president, make common cause with activists who want to shut down the coal industry?

• AFL-CIO affiliated unions are members of the Blue-Green Alliance, which includes such organizations as the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Sierra Club, and the Union of Concerned Scientists. Many people regard these groups as hostile to the industrial base of this nation’s economy. How do you reconcile union support for this alliance? According to a Department of Commerce study, green products and services account for at most 2 percent of private sector activity. How you can justify spending member dues on groups who have such a narrow focus and whose policies would eliminate unionized jobs in the energy and manufacturing sectors?

• Do you believe nuclear power has a role in America’s future energy production? Because AFL-CIO member unions are sending member dues to a group that includes the Union of Concerned Scientists, one of the major opponents of nuclear energy.

• Should a company that currently has unionized operations in a state ever be allowed to locate new operations in a right-to-work state?

A thousand or so protesters marched by our offices on Monday, shouting, banging drums, carrying signs that identified them as environmental activists. We learned that the group came from a rally at Lafayette Square, the wind-up of something called the Power Shift Conference, organized by the Energy Action Coalition, which claimed to have attracted “5000 young Obama voters” to palaver on green energy.

Critical thinking is over

There are so many factions, groups, alliances and cadres involved in these efforts it’s difficult to determine who is most accountable for the various policy idiocies (Energy Justice!, 100 Percent Clean Energy Now!), but one person clearly on record is Richard Trumka, AFL-CIO president.

Trumka shouted his slogans at the rally:

Because of your action, we’re moving past manufactured deficit hysteria. We’re moving past the same-old tired debates and toward jobs and a clean, green future.

You’re shifting America’s focus. You’re building power and political will to force our elected leaders to consider the quality of the air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat, the jobs we have, and the future we need for ourselves and our children.

Manufactured deficit hysteria? Tell that to Standard & Poor’s.

Trumka and the other speakers excoriated the usual targets, the Chamber, Big Polluters, BP, Koch Industries, Exxon, etc.

Coal, the source of about half the nation’s electricity, was another subject of hate. Many of the marchers carried the sign featured in the photo above, “Coal is over,” and the agitprop media advisory announced the marchers planned to protest at “the headquarters of the electric utility Gen-On, which continues to burn coal in Virginia.” (Sure hope so. Without coal, Virginia gets much darker, colder and poorer.)

These activists are clear about their goal: They want to kill coal. They want to shut down coal-fired power plants.

In giving these activists his full-throated support, Richard Trumka is telling his union brothers and sisters in the coal-mining industry that their jobs don’t matter, he would as soon as put them out of work. The United Mine Workers of America have about 30,000 members, but to Trumka, these men and women are just tools of an exploitive coal industry.

What’s so astonishing is that Trumka comes from a coal mining family and was a miner himself before working his way up to President of the United Mine Workers of America and then moving to the AFL-CIO. He used to go down in the mine with men he now wants to put out of work.

When the AFL-CIO’s Trumka denounces “the same-0ld tired debates,” he’s really denouncing the jobs that make this nation run, including tens of thousands of union jobs in the mining industry. So much for solidarity.

Here’s the vote that ended the Congressional career of Rep. Rick Boucher (D-VA), a 14-term House member from the southwestern corner of Virginia.

It’s the 219-212 vote by which the House passed H.R. 2454, the American Clean Energy and Security Act, aka Waxman-Markey.

Not to diminish the efforts of the winning candidate, Morgan Griffiths, the majority leader of the Virginia House of Delegates, who represents the city of Salem and portions of Roanoke County.

At The Wall Street Journal, Kim Strassel comments: “If Mr. Boucher goes down, he likely won’t be the only coal-state Democrat to get ‘BTUed’ in this election.”

The National Association of Manufacturers has been vocal in calling for the Export-Import Bank to reconsider its 2-1 vote denying loan guarantees for a power generation project in India, a denial that could cost Bucyrus, the Wisconsin-based equipment manufacturer, and its suppliers some $600 million in sales and 1,000 jobs. (See earlier posts.)

This one, misguided decision aside, there are bigger issues affecting the Export-Import Bank that need to be addressed. NAM President John Engler addressed some of them in a new op-ed published at The Hill, “Rejecting U.S. deals and jobs undermine goal of doubling exports“:

Governments of other nations operate similar export-financing programs, but with more substantial government backing and without attaching as many anti-competitive restrictions to projects.

Ex-Im Bank’s financial support for exports reached a record $21 billion last year. But its counterpart north of the border, Export Development Canada, provided $80 billion to support Canadian exports, an even more impressive number when you consider the relative size of the U.S. and Canadian economies.

Japan’s equivalent agency did nearly $140 billion in support last year!

The Export-Import Bank is also is saddled with restraints that its competitors are not — environmental impact studies, economic impact tests, requirements that U.S.-flagged vessels carry the financed cargo, etc. These non-trade objectives are well-meaning but surrender advantages so other countries get their power plants and other equipment but from non-U.S. suppliers using non-U.S. financing.

Tim Sullivan, President and CEO of the Wisconsin-based manufacturer Bucyrus, was on CNBC’s Squawkbox this morning to discuss the Export-Import Bank’s handling of the loan guarantees to support Bucyrus’ sale of mining equipment to build a mine and power plant in India. The Ex-Im Bank rejected the financing because the Indian project involved coal, in the process surrendering potentially $600 million in sales to foreign competitors and costing 1,000 U.S. jobs. As we reported last week, the decision provoked intense reaction from industry and elected officials, and the Ex-Im Bank is reconsidering its decision.

Sullivan:

I think this will get done. There has to be a memorandum of understanding with our customer that hopefully will be completed this week, and then next Thursday it will go back for a revote. I am confident, I think, because of the situation today that this deal will get down.

We’ve got four more pending, though, and those deals will not get done with the current environmental policies at U.S. Eximbank.

And later in the interview:

I have a standing invitation from [Ex-Im Bank] Chairman Hochberg to come to Washington. We’ve got to talk about the follow-on. We have to get these policies aligned with U.S. technology, not Chinese technology. Otherwise, we’re out.

And you know, if you look at what’s in the marketplace today, there’s 250 gigawatts of coal-fired power plants being constructed. That’s a billion tons of coal. We have a trillion tons of reserves of coal in 77 countries around the world. We’re going to burn coal. This puts us on the sidelines. It basically puts us out of business, and it tells manufacturers like myself, don’t expand in the United States. If you’re going to expand, go to some of the countries that have that capability to back your products.

• Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, “Bucyrus chief dug deep for support “
• Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, “Bank’s reversal lifts shadow over Bucyrus“