November 9, 2008

CHARLESTON, W.Va. - Coal industry watchdogs are looking for Obama to reverse Bush administration rule changes, beef up enforcement, and put the nation's first ever limits on carbon dioxide from power plants.

Read Obama's energy plan

CHARLESTON, W.Va. - When Barack Obama becomes president, the coal industry isn't likely to go bankrupt. But coal operators and coal-fired utilities should brace for tougher regulation of mine safety, strip mining and especially greenhouse gas emissions.

Coal industry watchdogs are looking for Obama to reverse Bush administration rule changes, beef up enforcement, and put the nation's first ever limits on carbon dioxide from power plants.

"While coal mining is vitally important to the nation, it can kill and maim miners and foul the land, air and water when mine safety and environmental laws are violated," said Patrick McGinley, a West Virginia University environmental law professor.

"I expect the Obama administration will act decisively to both promote responsible coal mining and vigorously enforce mine safety and environmental laws that protect coal miners' lives and coalfield communities."

Before Obama won, even the National Mining Association seemed to acknowledge that the Illinois senator - his concerns about mining and coal's contribution to climate change aside - was unlikely to eliminate the industry.

"Destroying the coal industry would break America's energy backbone," said NMA President Hal Quinn. "We trust the candidates understand this and do not believe that destroying the coal industry is part of the change we need."

After last week's victory, Obama's transition team began its work toward taking over the White House on Jan. 20.

For the coal industry, among the more important decisions will be who takes over two government agencies that are little known outside the coalfields: The Labor Department's Mine Safety and Health Administration and the Interior Department's Office of Surface Mining, Reclamation and Enforcement. Decisions about such sub-Cabinet posts are months away.

Cecil Roberts, president of the United Mine Workers union, said he wants to see MSHA put back in the hands of a miners' advocate, as opposed to the industry officials who ran the agency for much of the last eight years.

"That agency is there to protect the miners, and we need someone who will protect the miners," Roberts said last week. "We think there's a direct correlation between who is running that agency and the tragedies we had in 2006 and 2007."

Roberts and other mine safety advocates want MSHA to revisit rule changes made by the Bush administration, including more than a dozen tougher rule proposals that were dropped from the agency agenda after Bush took office in 2001. And they want MSHA to focus less on "compliance assistance" for operators and more on simply enforcing the federal Mine Safety Act.

"The Mine Act was never intended to boost production or to promote the mining industry," said Tony Oppegard, a mine safety expert who worked for MSHA during the Clinton administration. "The new head of MSHA needs to give inspectors the freedom and the backing to vigorously enforce the law."

Mine safety advocates also want Obama to speed up implementation of the 2006 MINER Act, and re-examine what MSHA is doing to combat a resurgence of black lung disease in Appalachia.

"Black lung probably is the biggest health threat facing the nation's miners, so MSHA's new leader should fast-track rulemaking to lower the agency's exposure limits for respirable dust," said Nathan Fetty, a public interest lawyer who is suing MSHA over its failure to strengthen black lung protections.

Environmental groups are looking for similar efforts by Obama to toughen enforcement of water pollution and reclamation rules that govern strip mining.

Among other things, citizen groups hope to stall a final decision on the federal Office of Surface Mining, Reclamation and Enforcement's proposed rewrite of the stream "buffer zone" rule until after Obama takes office.

But at the top of their list is Bush's repeal of a Clean Water Act rule that redefined "fill material" to legalize the huge mountaintop removal valley fills that bury streams.

"I don't think we would end up mining less coal," said Joe Lovett, a lawyer and director of the Appalachian Center for the Economy and the Environment. "But it would dramatically reduce the size of valley fills and surface mines, and would shift mining from surface mines to underground mines."

Issues surrounding the fill rule are already pending at the U.S. Supreme Court, in a case involving a permit for an Alaska gold mine.

And it's possible that environmental groups will seek a legislative change instead, with a bill still pending in Congress to overturn the Bush fill rule.

"That way, a future administration couldn't change it again," said Joan Mulhern, a lawyer with the Washington group Earthjustice.

Tackling climate change

In his victory speech last week, Obama listed a "planet in peril" second on his list of challenges the nation faces. He cited it just after "two wars" and before "the worst financial crisis in a century."

Obama has promised swift and tough action on the biggest issue facing the coal industry: National and international efforts to try to limit carbon dioxide emissions that contribute to global warming and climate change.

During the campaign, Obama pledged to reduce U.S. carbon emissions by at least 80 percent by 2050. In the near term, his campaign plan called for reducing emissions to 1990 levels by 2020.

UMW officials and some within the coal industry aren't as concerned about the 2050 target. But the near-term reductions scare coal industry backers. They say cutting back to 1990 emissions levels by 2020 doesn't provide adequate time to work out the long list of hurdles to implementing carbon capture and sequestration technology on coal-fired power plants.

Eugene Trisko, a lawyer who follows climate change issues for the UMW, said last week that he hopes Obama's near-term carbon reduction promises "will be re-examined in the harsher light of today's economy."

But Lexi Shultz, deputy director of climate programs at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said Friday that other steps - such as tougher fuel economy standards and improved energy efficiency - could be used to meet the 2020 limits Obama proposed.

"There's a tremendous amount of potential out to 2020, without bringing on a bunch of new technology," Shultz said. "A lot of this does not have to come out of the backs of the coal industry in the early years."

Reach Ken Ward Jr. at kw...@wvgazette.com or 348-1702.