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Fwd: Fw: Statement from Mary Anne Hitt on Peabody "Coal Cares" prank by the Yes Men
by James Kotcon 11 May '11

11 May '11

So I guess it was a prank. JBK >>> Orli Cotel <Orli.Cotel(a)SIERRACLUB.ORG> 5/10/2011 5:01 PM >>> Hi, wanted to make sure everyone saw this statement that went out earlier today. Orli Orli Cotel Deputy Communications Director Sierra Club (415)977-5627 (work) (646)522-7751 (cell) -----Forwarded by Orli Cotel/Sierraclub on 05/10/2011 02:00PM ----- To: orli.cotel(a)sierraclub.org From: "Orli Cotel, Sierra Club" <orli.cotel(a)sierraclub.org> Date: 05/10/2011 11:… [View More]52AM Subject: Statement from Mary Anne Hitt on Peabody "Coal Cares" prank by the Yes Men View a web version of this email. Contact: Orli Cotel (415) 977-5627 or (646) 522-7751 Statement of Beyond Coal Campaign Director Mary Anne Hitt, in response to the Yes Men prank launching fake “Coal Cares” website from Peabody Coal Today, a website reported to be from Peabody Coal , called "Coal Cares" www.coalcares.org, announced that the company would offer reimbursement vouchers to any family of a child with asthma living near a coal-fired power plant. The website was recently revealed to be a prank by The Yes Men. Mary Anne Hitt responds: “Today’s prank from the Yes Men may have been a fake, but it drew attention to a very real issue. Pollution from coal plants is making kids sick, triggering asthma attacks and more. Coal pollution causes over 12,000 visits to the emergency room each year – and over $100 billion in health costs. Low-income families are struggling to pay health care bills for their kids, while polluters like Peabody should be paying for the mess they create. It's clear that, well, coal doesn’t care. Peabody’s response today showed that the company is not planning to help the families that are bearing the burden of the pollution they’re creating. While this prank may have been satirical, the real effects of coal pollution on kids with asthma is not funny. This is yet another reminder that we need to transition to cleaner sources of energy like wind and solar that don't make people sick." Sierra Club | 85 Second St., San Francisco, CA 94105 | Change Media Type | Contact Us | Visit the Press Room Update My Profile | Manage My Email Preferences | Update My Interests | Unsubscribe - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - To unsubscribe from the COAL-CAMPAIGN-ALERTS list, send any message to: COAL-CAMPAIGN-ALERTS-signoff-request(a)LISTS.SIERRACLUB.ORG Check out our Listserv Lists support site for more information: http://www.sierraclub.org/lists/faq.asp To view the Sierra Club List Terms & Conditions, see: http://www.sierraclub.org/lists/terms.asp [View Less]

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Fw: Wind Power and Wildlife: Set the Record Straight
by Frank Young 05 May '11

05 May '11

Wind Power and Wildlife: Set the Record StraightJim and all- Here is an AWEA alert about some of what I was telling you about at the ExCom meeting Saturday. I am not familiar with the draft guidelines USFWS has formulated. But AWEA is obviously mounting a campaign to weaken them. Frank ----- Original Message ----- From: Denise Bode, AWEA To: Franklin Young Sent: Thursday, May 05, 2011 5:36 PM Subject: Wind Power and Wildlife: Set the Record Straight Dear Franklin, … [View More]The future of the American wind industry is at stake - draft guidelines from the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS) threaten to halt the development of 34,000 megawatts of wind projects (enough to power nearly 9 million homes) and endanger 27,500 American jobs, all without achieving benefits to wildlife beyond those available from less intrusive means. The deadline for public comments is just two weeks away and we need you to write to FWS and set the record straight. Let them know that: a.. Deploying wind power and protecting wildlife are important and complementary goals - and that the wind energy industry has worked with states, wildlife conservation organizations, scientists, tribes, and federal officials to provide recommended guidelines that would achieve just that. Click here to read more about this initiative. b.. Expanding the use of wind power improves environmental conditions for wildlife because wind power has none of the harmful emissions, water use, mining, drilling and hazardous waste of other energy sources. c.. While birds do collide with wind turbines at some sites, modern wind power plants are collectively far less harmful to birds than numerous other manmade projects like radio towers, tall buildings, airplanes or vehivcles. The National Academy of Sciences estimated in 2006 that wind power is responsible for 3 of every 100,000 bird detahs caused by humands and pets. With two weeks left in their public comment period there's still time for you to submit a comment to FWS to urge them to adopt guidelines that are workable for wind power and wildlife. We have drafted a letter for you that includes the facts referenced in this e-mail. Please personalize this letter with a sentence or two about the importance of growing wind energy development in the U.S. and click submit to send it along to FWS. Thanks so much for your help on this important issue. Sincerely, Denise Bode CEO, American Wind Energy Association If you no longer wish to receive e-mail from us, please click here. [View Less]

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FW: [mountainpartyexcom] Bob Henry Baber interview with Beckley newspaper
by Grubb, Karen 02 May '11

02 May '11

April 24, 2011 Gubernatorial candidate profiles: the Mountain Party’s Bob Henry Baber<http://www.register-herald.com/todaysfrontpage/x461201913/Gubernatorial-can…> <http://www.register-herald.com/> BECKLEY — Editor’s Note: Through May 4, The Register-Herald will publish a daily story featuring in-depth interviews we conducted with candidates seeking the office of governor of West Virginia. Each of the 16 people who filed were issued an invitation to appear before our editorial … [View More]board, and 14 of those came to Beckley to meet with us and discuss some of the key issues in West Virginia. The stories will appear in the order in which the candidates were interviewed. Today’s story focuses on Mountain candidate Bob Henry Baber, of Glenville. 1 — It certainly appears that Marcellus shale regulation will remain a major topic of interest for the next several years. What are the key features that you see that need to be included in West Virginia law in order to best serve the interests of all the parties involved? Obviously, I’m for the development of this relatively green energy source. We do have to have regulation, no doubt about that. That’s going to mean we’re going to have to have some fees, the tax. We’re going to have to increase the filing fees. Even the DEP says right now they really don’t have enforcement capabilities for these now about 3,000 new employees that are pretty much gallivanting around the state. It’s really, really important that we protect our water and that we make sure that the environment is protected as this new wave of development takes place. I do want to say, interestingly enough, I have a farm in Greenbrier County. And I do not own the mineral rights. It’s a broad form deed. I actually brought two of them with me. I’ll leave them with you. These are the deeds to my grandparents’ farm, and they actually outline the rights of the surface owner as opposed to the mineral owner, and/or the gas owner in this case. And really, as I jokingly said, it’s a broad form of deed; all grandpa, all you bought, was the air. These broad form deeds were revised, you might say outlawed, for strip mining purposes in every state in the union. Kentucky was the last in 1980. But the only thing the landowner is protected from, the private landowner, is from strip mining. They’re not protected from gas interests. And that gives me real pause because, guess what, I got a letter from a gas company saying we want to come in and test on your farm. I’ve got 30 acres in Greenbrier County. I’m surrounded by 300,000 privately held acres in Westvaco, and it kind of makes me wonder why they want to come in on my 30 when there’s 300,000 around me. It also gives me pause for my well, my land, my surface. I’ve only got seven acres that are cleared. The test might not be that big. But if an actual well came in, it could be significant. This poses a real growth opportunity for West Virginia. But we need to protect the environment. And there’s one thing that I’m going to say, and that is, this can probably open to maybe another conversation a little about mountaintop mining and coal mining. But we need to, with this Marcellus development, create what I’m calling the energy dividend. We need to rake some money off the top of gas and coal. I’m talking new taxes, or severance taxes, to create the new green economy. We are an energy-producing state. That’s kind of insulated us a little bit. You know, everything is happening in the country. Of course, we didn’t have a big bubble to pop. But we’ve got to bridge the future to the new energy future. We have that opportunity, being an energy-producing state now, with fossil fuels, to move into the future, to plan the West Virginia of 50 years from now. And I don’t really see anyone looking at that. 2 — As the debt for OPEB continues to rise, what steps need to be taken to stem the tide and begin reversing this trend? It’s a huge problem, and I have to say I really don’t have a ready solution for it, and I’m not sure any other politicians really do. A lot of our politicians say cut taxes and make jobs. I have no idea what that actually really means. We’re going to have to continue to be extremely fiscally responsible in West Virginia. I’ve been mayor. Even though I’m a liberal in the Mountain Party, I’m as tight as the bark on a tree. I was as tight as the bark on a tree in Richwood. You can’t spend money. Now, people say you’ve got to cut waste and use the waste to cut down the liability. Unfortunately, you know, waste is not like a slab of fat on the side of a steak. It’s not like that. So waste is extremely difficult to cut. It can be done. I found out when I was in Richwood. But it’s not a very small level. I’d like to speak from specificities of my experiences. Really, 10 percent of our budget was being wasted. We had a $1 million budget; about $100,000 was being wasted on equipment you couldn’t need, couldn’t use, couldn’t fix. Plus, and this is something you kind of get into, this is sort of a difficult issue, you have to have an investment strategy for your state. Sometimes you have to invest to save. We all know that. When your car gets really, really old, sometimes you’re better off to take a loan and buy a new one. In Richwood, when I became mayor, I found out that we had old computers that no one was trained on. We weren’t paying anybody anything to work them either, $7 or $8 an hour. Well, guess what? At the end of the year, we had to hire all the accountants to come in and redo all our books and spend a small fortune doing it, because all the data we had was garbage. So what did we do? We invested and spent some money on buying new computers and training our people to use them. We gave them pay raises from $7-$8 to $10-$12, and guess what, we saved money. So sometimes you do have to invest to save. And that’s a complex issue for people to understand, I think, sometimes. You can’t just say, well, cut, cut, cut, cut. You’re a newspaper. Sometimes you have to spend money to save money or move forward. Waste is awful hard to get at. I think we should try to do that. But that’s going to be an ongoing issue for our state. I applaud Gov. Manchin’s first forays into paying down some of our unfunded liabilities. He was a fiscally responsible governor, rolled up his sleeves and did a few things. I worked very closely in Richwood to do some things. We’re just going to have to watch our budget like a hawk and try to pay down these unfunded liabilities as best we can. 3 — Transportation remains a significant issue, especially in our region. What, specifically, will you do as governor to try to resolve the funding crisis as it relates to financing new construction and providing for adequate maintenance of our existing roads and bridges? It is a big issue. I do think that one of the hidden costs of coal is its toll on our roads, particularly in the southern part of the state. And we’re starting to see this with Marcellus shale, too, where a lot of these small roads in the rural areas are being torn all to pieces. So that’s another issue we have to take a look at. If you look at the state budget, 50 percent of it goes to education. Another 20 percent goes to welfare and social systems. Another 15 to 20 percent for security. And actually, when you start getting down to the nitty gritty, there’s not a whole lot of slack in our budget. So, I think, the federal government is not in great shape. Federal money is going to get tougher, and tougher and tougher to get. We’re going to have to get very aggressive about linking with and utilizing the federal government to... We’re already getting more than our fair share of the pie, but we’re going to have to continue to do that. We’re going to need federal dollars. It’s going to have to be part of the Marcellus shale solution, too. We’re going to have to factor in the cost to the roads and what the damage to the roads is going to be. (Would you have signed the $40 million increase in motor vehicle fees?) I’m not too happy about the vehicle tax, to be honest with you. Vehicles are something everybody has to have. I think it tends to be harder on and unfair for the lower-class person. I’m more vice-oriented. I think that taxes on cigarettes should go up. Liquor and things like that. I really don’t like raising taxes, but if you do have to raise taxes, I don’t like to do it on necessities. I am glad that we lowered the food sales tax by one percent. I hope eventually we’ll get rid of that. 4 — One of former Gov. Joe Manchin’s major platform issues was education reform. While much was discussed, no wide-ranging changes to the way we educate our children have been made in the recent past. What are your plans when it comes to education reform? Well, first, I want to say I really am a big supporter of small schools, and I think we should maintain as many of those as we possibly can, particularly our little elementary schools out in the rural area. Now, I come from Richwood. Richwood is continuing to be in decline. The elementary school would be fine. Richwood High School is hanging in there. Richwood High School actually is the heart and soul of that town right now, the town itself economically. Richwood used to be the Lewisburg of the mountains. It’s now like a bubble of southern West Virginia with the loss of coal jobs and the emergence of Summersville as a regional hub. If Richwood lost its high school, it would literally have no heart left. On the other hand, I’m in Gilmer County right now. Gilmer has lost half its population in 20 years. We have five little, tiny, old elementary schools, and frankly, they don’t want to lose them, because these little towns that have them, Normantown, whatever, if they lose their school, that’s kind of the end of their town, last little focal point. On the other hand, when you’re in a county that’s lost half of its population, you may have to consolidate in some cases. And that’s to be avoided. I hate long bus rides for the kids. But it may have to happen. Going up to the next level, we definitely need to link higher education more effectively with our students coming out of high school. So many students showing up at Glenville don’t have the skills to make it. They really don’t. And I really love what our colleges are doing. You know, we have the hidden P.R.O.M.I.S.E. Scholarship program. It’s actually the wave of the future of West Virginia. I’m going to tap my institution at Glenville. We’ve caught the wave, you might say. And our idea is to identify great students who might be first generation and have specific needs and start cultivating them in the sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, 10th grade, bring them to camps, get them introduced to college. Give them some scholarship money. If they come to Glenville, great. But if they go to college, great. If you look at the United States today, 25 percent of United States citizens have bachelor’s degrees. In West Virginia, it’s 17 percent, and in central West Virginia it’s 13 percent. And I’m going to say something here that’s probably going to be a little unpopular with some of your readers. But I do believe that the P.R.O.M.I.S.E. Scholarship should be needs-based. Really. I’m a professor myself. And I’ve been a single dad. I’ve raised three kids. I’m not making any big money. I’ve got two in college. So it’s a bit of a struggle for me. But I’m making a decent salary, too. But you know, traditionally, the vehicle by which people could move up in our society was through higher education. And really, when you have doctors and lawyers and professors such as myself, those kids are more apt to get P.R.O.M.I.S.E. Scholarship but don’t have as great a need. We need to reach down here and help these students who are not going to make it to school unless we help them out. And I will say on the federal level, even though this is not specifically about West Virginia, Obama has called for $44 billion for Pell Grants and loans. The Republicans want $17 billion. To me, that’s a cut that should not be made. That’s an investment strategy. We’re now No. 9 in the world in terms of graduation and sinking fast. If we’re going to compete in the world of the future, we’ve got to continue to get college graduates, and that means giving them the money to go to school. Even as it is, the students... My son is going to Glenville right now. He’s borrowing some serious money. He’s going to be $30,000 in debt, or more, when he gets out. Well, that’s daunting to me, to think about starting out life that way. We’ve got to help our students. (On the issue of dropouts) I think this program we’ve got at Glenville... We’ve got a mentoring component, identifying students who are leader students. We’ve really got to start reaching down in the sixth, seventh and eighth grades. You cannot wait until the ninth, 10th and 11th grades. They’re lost to you by then. So we’ve got to start intervening early in identifying the at-risk students and trying to get them interested in going to college and keeping them going. Also, we traditionally in West Virginia, unfortunately, have sort of brought up the rear in terms of community colleges. We’ve made some progress that way. But they really are the gateway institutions. So, linkages to those students who may not want to do a traditional four-year school but would want to be in the different trades. I’ll give you a great example from Glenville. We have a land resources program. Those students are doing very, very well now, with everything that’s going on in the gas fields. Well, you know a bunch of our programs are associate degree programs. Most people don’t know that, even though we’re a four-year school. So you can get a two-year degree and leave Glenville and go right out into the oil and gas fields and make a good salary for yourself and a good living. So, these are the kinds of things we need to look at, very pragmatic linkages with what our state’s needs are and the needs of our students. (On charter schools) I’m not opposed to charter schools. They don’t really seem to be that big of an issue in West Virginia. We really don’t have the wherewithal to make a whole lot of charter schools. In urban areas, charter schools have been used and some by the Republicans, I think, as kind of a wedge into the public school system. I like the public school system and support the public school system. To come back to one of your earlier questions, I would like to see us have sort of... Obama had sort of a Race to the Top. I like the idea that we would put out grant programs that would not penalize schools that are necessarily doing poorly but reward schools for doing very well and reward teachers who are doing well. So I think that would be a way to improve our schools. 5 — We are constantly being told, and are witnessing every day the far-reaching impacts of drug abuse. What will you do as governor to address the epidemic and do you have any specific plans for interdiction efforts? That is a deep, deep-breath question. I saw plenty of it in Richwood. We’ve got plenty of opportunity to walk around the corner and get some OxyContin if you’ve got a mind to do it. And OxyContin is terribly frightening to me. These designer drugs are so enticing. I feared for my own children, to be honest with you, when they were in Richwood. You’re just thinking, “Hey, you know, it’s one thing to be smoking marijuana, and a lot of our kids do, right?” That doesn’t really frighten me that much. But when you think about them crushing up the first OxyContin pill and doing it, and knowing their brain circuitry is going to be rewired, that’s a terribly frightening thought. I think we’ve just got to — our education system — we’ve just got to get our kids interested in making a life for themselves. And it’s tough. I know in Richwood, you know, that town is very depressed. The kids are depressed. And the temptation, you know, to self-medicate, is very, very strong. So I think we need to do education. We need to be talking to students about the perils of this. To be honest with you, I think our “Just Say No” strategy is a bit naive and foolish, because you can say that and the kids will be with that until they’re about 10 or 12, and they’re going to try marijuana, and they’ll get a little high and kind of enjoy it. And then they’ll start drinking and saying, “Well, you say drinking was bad, but I kind of enjoyed those first couple of beers. Now maybe I’ll hit it a little bit harder.” So I think some reality-based discussions with the, about the true nature of what can happen to you if you head down the serious drug road. We need to get that word out there. Maybe we need to get people who have really lost it and fallen apart, have them in schools talking more about this to kids, where they can see people who have gone to prison, people who have lost their families and their jobs. A little reality-based talking. Please highlight the key points of your platform. I want to say a couple of things. First, I run kind of as a common person. You might say in the Mountain Party, we’re sort of the bake-sale party. And I think that actually speaks well of us. Because as the big money is raised by the Republicans and Democrats, you got to be wondering, you know, what influence is that buying? It will buy influence. I’ve lived all over West Virginia. I have a child born here in Beckley. I’ve been in Beckley, Williamson, Montgomery, Richwood, Charleston, Huntington and Glenville. I’ve lived all over the state. And I’ve been everything from a house painter and a landscaper to an executive director, a Kellogg fellow, and a mayor. I’ve really got a breadth of experience that I think probably many of the other politicians don’t have. One thing that has to be addressed in our discussion here today is the issue of mine safety. I’m very unhappy with what happened at Upper Big Branch. I am not an enemy of coal. However, if coal is gong to put profits above the lives of 29 miners, and that’s what happened at Upper Big Branch... We all know there were no carbide tips on the front of the machine. The mine was laced with coal dust. So those sparks followed the coal dust to the methane. It’s murder. I’m not against coal. We are going to be dependent on coal. We are going to mine coal in West Virginia. But we need to do it safely and responsibly. Also, in regard to mountaintop mining, which is a huge plank of the Mountain Party, none of the Republicans or Democrats who are running are going to say they’re against mountaintop removal, because they want to be governor, and if you say that, you can’t get to be governor, which is unfortunate. >From an ecological point of view, we should stop mountaintop removal today. However, we have to take a reality bite here and that is right now, there are 6,000 miners directly tied to that employment, and probably another 10 to 15,000 indirect jobs. So we need to phase out mountaintop removal. We need to put the bulldozers in reverse, actually, and start reclaiming the land that’s already behind us. And I have a proposal to do that. We should take abandoned mine land; that’s what the money is for. We’ve got to start a transition in those southern counties toward what I call a green economy. We take some money off of coal and gas, and we create solar manufacturing plants and solar collector stations, and we transition to the new green economy, which is coming. And we need to get ahead of the curve and think forward, not backward. We have a lot of politicians now digging in their heels, looking backward, trying to defend coal. No, let’s take this last window of opportunity with coal and this new window of opportunity with fracking and create the new green that’s coming. I wanted to say this about jobs. So we have green energy jobs. I’ll not talk about the West Virginia Development Office. You may not be aware of this. I’ve been in grant writing and have written $21 million grants in my life. West Virginia is getting one-fourth of the federal and private grant dollars that Mississippi is getting. Why? We don’t have enough people in West Virginia that know how to write grants to get our fair share of the pie. Our West Virginia Development Office should have 10 grant writers that do nothing but follow the big foundations around — Wal-Mart, Lumina, putting out huge money for education. And on the list goes. Grants for health care, obesity — all the issues that our state needs to address. We’re not getting the private dollars to augment what we need. Tourism. I’m huge on tourism, and that is one place I would invest more money in. Tourism is huge for West Virginia’s future; that would include bringing the retirees back. We’re seeing quite a bit of that. Tourism is huge for West Virginia. We need to push, push, push on that. But unfortunately, mountaintop removal is antithetical to tourism. So, we’ve got to protect our environment. One little catch phrase I’d like to throw out to you — what I call the “green new deal.” I want to talk about the jobs that are going to be the new green jobs for West Virginia. Does coal have a future in green energy world? Coal is going to be with us for awhile. It does not matter. Right now, the environmental groups are trying to end mountaintop removal. You know, the Spruce Knob has been significantly downsized, or even stopped, by EPA for now. They had other alternatives, and they did not submit them. They could have done 80 to 90 percent of what they wanted to do, but they got a little greedy. Here’s the big story that’s not being told to West Virginia: Mountaintop removal will end, and it’s not going to end because of the EPA or the environmentalists. It’s going to end because we are in competition with the Powder River basin in Wyoming, which is now producing 400 million tons of coal a year, 40 percent of all the electrical energy made by coal in the United States. And that mine is growing by leaps and bounds. We’re not going to compete much longer with that mine. I believe that mountaintop removal is going to end in West Virginia, no matter what, probably at a maximum 15 to 20 years. My biggest fear is that it’s going to end, and in its wake, the coal companies are going to pull out and leave behind massive chunks of unreclaimed land. That’s the worst possible scenario that can happen. The country is going to continue to consume coal. We’re hooked on it. We’re hooked on coal, and we’re hooked on oil. We have no place else to go. So, coal’s not going anywhere. Now, our metallurgical coal will continue to be a very viable export. When people say I’m an environmentalist, but guess what, I tanked up my car to drive down here to see you guys here today. And I like to turn on the lights in my house, too. I’m just as dependent as you are. We’re all part of the problem. So, I haven’t got my head stuck in the clouds, saying, “We’re just going to pull the plug on coal,” and say, “Oh, well, that’s it for coal.” That ain’t going to happen. Mountain Party's Bob Henry Baber talks about green jobs and the economy in W.Va. gov race<http://www.therepublic.com/view/story/3166f997419540adba798a7afe4236c6/WV--…> * BRITTANY ERSKINE Associated Press CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Preparing West Virginia for the economy of the future is exactly what Bob Henry Baber wants to do. "We're just not doing what we need to do to move forward," Baber said. "West Virginia should be able to educate our people and move our people forward and be a cutting edge state." The 60-year-old former mayor of Richwood is one of two Mountain Party candidates competing for the party's nomination, which will be decided at convention Sunday. Six Democrats and eight Republicans are running in the May 14 primary election. This year's special gubernatorial election is to fill the remaining term of former Gov. Joe Manchin, who was elected to the U.S. Senate last year following the death of Sen. Robert C. Byrd. Baber sees the state gradually transitioning to producing and using green energy. "We could have solar factories making solar panels and selling them around the world," he said. "We're in a key position to make a transition to becoming the new green energy state." As governor, his two priorities would be "education and tying education to jobs." As a major gifts officer and former professor at Glenville State University, Baber praises the school's Hidden Promise program. The program identifies sixth-graders with promise, but in "need some help getting to go to college." Participants receive tutoring, mentoring and other activities designed to keep them in school and help them get into college. A small schools person, Baber wants to see the state's merit-based PROMISE scholarship shift to a needs-based scholarship to better help those in the middle class and below. "Needs should get it first," he said. "Fair is fair." Tying the curriculum of vocational schools to industry would help create jobs, particularly for the work force that will be demanded by Marcellus shale development, Baber said. He said community development could be enhanced by expanding access to high-speed internet and by fiscally empowering communities. "We tell people to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, but they have no capital," Baber said. ""It's not like these little towns don't know what they need to do. They know what they need to do, but the ones with no money don't have the capital to invest so they can't do it." One way to get money to communities for economic development projects may be through foundation grants, he said. According to FoundationSearch.com, in 2010 over $3.1 billion in grants were distributed throughout the nation. Only $4.8 million of that went to West Virginia. "One of the first things I would do as governor, I would hire 10 new people for the West Virginia Development office who would do nothing but link state needs with what the foundations were giving away nationally," he said. Calling the Republicans and Democrats "more alike than different," Baber said the Mountain Party offers voters a truly alternative platform. [View Less]

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FW: Bob Henry Baber Wins Mountain Party Nomination for State Governor
by Grubb, Karen 02 May '11

02 May '11

Please read and forward widely to your organizational groups. Karen Grubb Mountain Party Secretary ----- Forwarded Message ---- From: Ronda Gregory <ronda.gregory4(a)gmail.com> To: dhcorcoran(a)gmail.com; BErkskine(a)ap.org; russell(a)earthday.net; atoma68(a)yahoo.com; Roger.Sublett(a)myunion.edu; kmw(a)wvexecutive.com; mark(a)imagesbyromano.com; dbeard(a)dominionpost.com Sent: Mon, May 2, 2011 9:40:56 AM Subject: Bob Henry Baber Wins Mountain Party Nomination for State Governor Folks: … [View More]

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Fwd: Breaking News from InsideEPA.com
by Paul Wilson 29 Apr '11

29 Apr '11

I don't subscribe to this service but thought this story would be of interest to many..... ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: InsideEPA.com <epa-alerts(a)iwpnews.com> Date: Thu, Apr 28, 2011 at 1:08 PM Subject: Breaking News from InsideEPA.com To: pjgrunt(a)gmail.com [image: InsideEPA.com] <http://insideepa.com/> Breaking News from InsideEPA.com . . . . The stage has been set for one of the most important years of energy policymaking in decades now that the Obama … [View More]administration is calling on the natural gas to agree to new environmental controls. One key natural gas regulation the administration is developing targets greenhouse gas and other emissions from drilling operations *but EPA has made a deal with environmental lawyers to delay its release until next February.* There is only one way to get to the action before the rules are proposed and that’s InsideEPA.com. We’ll give you a trial subscription free for 30 days<http://insideepa.com/component/option,com_trialuser/code,4282011>to prove it. *Here’s the story:* *EPA Stalls Gas Drilling Air Rules But Consensus Emerges On Methane Limits<http://insideepa.com/Inside-EPA-General/Inside-EPA-Public-Content/epa-stall…> * *And here’s the offer:* Try InsideEPA.com free for a full 30 days and experience our trademark investigative business reporting for yourself. There's no cost, no risk and nothing to lose. Your trial subscription to Inside EPA.com will include regular email updates on emerging regulations for fracking and natural gas drilling. *Sign up right now<http://insideepa.com/component/option,com_trialuser/code,4282011> * * *Now is the best time to subscribe to InsideEPA.com to get the behind-the-scenes story on these upcoming regulations for the natural gas industry, as well as the Obama administration's aggressive agenda on a host of environmental issues, from climate change to water quality regulations. For the past 30 years Inside EPA has been the leading news sources for tracking emerging policy debates at EPA and within the federal government, and our out-ahead coverage on the latest dust-up over fracking builds on that award-winning stature. Regards, The Editors InsideEPA.com/Inside EPA Weekly Report Try InsideEPA.com Today *You can start a 30-day free trial of InsideEPA.com right now* -- it only takes seconds, no credit card is required and you'll receive no bill or invoice. Just click here to sign up today<http://insideepa.com/component/option,com_trialuser/code,4282011> . Customer Service 703-416-8505 iepa(a)iwpnews.com Site Licenses Available Want to share access to InsideEPA.com with your colleagues? We have economical site license packages available to fit any size organization, from a few people at one location to company-wide access. For more information on how you can get greater access to InsideEPA.com for your office, contact our Online Customer Service department at 703-416-8505 or iepa(a)iwpnews.com <+iepa(a)iwpnews.com>. *Mailing address:* 1919 South Eads Street, Suite 201, Arlington VA 22202 *Telephone:* 703-416-8500 or 1-800-424-9068 Please do not respond to this e-mail, as it was sent from an unmonitored mailbox. If you have a customer service inquiry, please contact us at iepa(a)iwpnews.com. If you wish to unsubscribe from InsideEPA.com email notifications please click here<http://iwp.lyris.net/t/44576/762982/77274/0/?3e076d18=cGpncnVudEBnbWFpbC5jb…>. Copyright © 2011 Inside Washington Publishers. All rights reserved. -- Paul Wilson Sierra Club 504 Jefferson Ave Charles Town, WV 25414-1130 Phone: 304-725-4360 Cell: 304-279-1361 "There is no forward until you have gone back" ~Buddha "In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous" ~ Aristotle [View Less]

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Fwd: Sierra Club Launches Interactive Map of U.S. Coal-fired Power Plants
by Paul Wilson 28 Apr '11

28 Apr '11

fyi, paul ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Oliver Bernstein <oliver.bernstein(a)sierraclub.org> Date: Thu, Apr 28, 2011 at 12:11 PM Subject: Sierra Club Launches Interactive Map of U.S. Coal-fired Power Plants To: COAL-CAMPAIGN-ALERTS(a)lists.sierraclub.org *Special thanks to Adam Kapp and Megan Siems for all of their programming and research on this project. Thanks also to Ginny Cramer, Adrian Cotter, Mary Anne Hitt, Verena Owen and the Online Organizing Department.* -----… [View More]----------------------------------- BLOG POST about the new coal map from Mary Anne Hitt -- Grist - http://www.grist.org/article/2011-04-28-is-there-a-toxic-mercury-hot-spot-n… Daily Kos - http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/04/28/971045/-Is-There-a-Toxic-Mercury-H… Compass - http://sierraclub.typepad.com/compass/2011/04/is-there-a-toxic-mercury-hot-… Alternet - http://blogs.alternet.org/maryannehitt/2011/04/28/is-there-a-toxic-mercury-… PRESS RELEASE LINK -- http://sc.org/jRtc5T For Immediate Release – April 28, 2011 Contact: Oliver Bernstein, 512.289.8618 *Sierra Club Launches Interactive Map of U.S. Coal-fired Power Plants* * * *Powerful New Tool Highlights Toxic Mercury Hotspots, Outlines Roadmap for Moving America Beyond Coal* SAN FRANCISCO – After recently celebrating the defeat of the 152nd proposed coal-fired power plant prevented or abandoned in the past decade, the Sierra Club's Beyond Coal Campaign announced today that it would shift its focus toward replacing the nation’s existing fleet of dirty coal plants with clean energy sources. A new comprehensive, interactive map<http://www.sierraclub.org/coal/map/>of the approximately 500 existing U.S. coal-fired power plants will help guide concerned Americans and public officials as they seize this historic opportunity to stand up for clean energy. Find the coal plants nearest to you at http://www.sierraclub.org/coal/map/. While the priority for the Beyond Coal Campaign remains opposing the remaining handful of proposed new coal plants, it is the orderly phase-out of the nearly 500 existing coal-fired power plants that will truly protect public health and help avoid irreparable climate disruption. "These aging coal plants – some of which date back to the 1920's – are the largest sources of health-threatening, climate-disrupting pollution and the largest obstacles to a clean energy future," said *Verena Owen, volunteer chair of the Beyond Coal Campaign*. "We begin this exciting new phase of the Beyond Coal Campaign on a strong foundation, having recently won important victories in the Tennessee Valley, Colorado and Washington State." The interactive map announced today <http://www.sierraclub.org/coal/map>allows users to see the dirty coal plants nearest to them, to learn more about the toxic pollution and health threats caused by those plants and to sign up to get involved in the local Sierra Club effort to phase out those coal plants and replace them with clean energy. Just as the Sierra Club used its signature Coal Plant Tracker <http://sc.org/coaltracker> to empower activists and to monitor progress in the effort to prevent new coal pollution, this new tool will play a key role in the fight to phase out coal plants that already exist. The map currently focuses on toxic mercury, an alarming health threat from coal-fired power plants. Because toxic mercury from coal plants gets into local waterways, most states have warnings against eating fish caught locally. New protections proposed last month by the Environmental Protection Agency would reduce toxic mercury by more than 90%, and the Sierra Club is mobilizing Americans in support of the proposed new protections. The mapping tool can evolve as needed to highlight the devastation coal causes throughout its life cycle. For instance, when coal pollution causes air quality to reach unhealthy levels in many towns and cities during the summer months, the map can adapt to highlight the worst emitters of soot and smog. "As major sources of life-threatening mercury, soot and smog pollution, existing coal plants are finally coming under increasing scrutiny," said *Mary Anne Hitt, Director of the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal Campaign*. "America can replace dirty coal plants with clean energy solutions like energy efficiency, wind, solar and geothermal to meet America’s energy needs and create jobs. The wind industry already employs more people than the coal mining industry in the United States. As clean energy deployment continues to accelerate nationwide, we can repeat and greatly expand this economic success by moving beyond coal and opening new opportunities for innovation and job creation." The success of the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal Campaign throughout the past eight years rests largely on the dedicated activists volunteering on the ground in almost every state. “Every day, more Americans join the effort to push for cleaner energy options for their area,” added Owen. ”The Sierra Club is proud to present this new roadmap <http://www.sierraclub.org/coal/map/> to track their successes.” PRESS RELEASE LINK -- http://sc.org/jRtc5T ### -- Oliver Bernstein National Communications Strategist Sierra Club Phone: 512.477.2152 Cell: 512.289.8618 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - To unsubscribe from the COAL-CAMPAIGN-ALERTS list, send any message to: COAL-CAMPAIGN-ALERTS-signoff-request(a)LISTS.SIERRACLUB.ORG Check out our Listserv Lists support site for more information: http://www.sierraclub.org/lists/faq.asp To view the Sierra Club List Terms & Conditions, see: http://www.sierraclub.org/lists/terms.asp -- Paul Wilson Sierra Club 504 Jefferson Ave Charles Town, WV 25414-1130 Phone: 304-725-4360 Cell: 304-279-1361 "There is no forward until you have gone back" ~Buddha "In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous" ~ Aristotle [View Less]

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Fwd: press on WV DEP appeal of New Hill West victory
by James Kotcon 27 Apr '11

27 Apr '11

>>> Peter Morgan <peter.morgan(a)apps.sierraclub.org> 4/27/2011 3:12 PM >>> As expected, WV DEP has appealed our win before the WV Environmental Quality Board in which we successfully challenged a CWA discharge permit for a surface mine that failed to contain limits on conductivity, TDS, sulfate, and selenium. I've also heard that the company filed its own appeal, though I have not seen that yet. This Greenwire story puts this case in context of recent EPA action on … [View More]conductivity. It also includes good quotes from local Sierra Club member Petra Wood. We intend to defend the EQB's good decision. 6. WATER POLLUTION: W.Va. officials bicker over conductivity standard for mountaintop mining (04/27/2011) Manuel Quinones, E&E reporter West Virginia environmental regulators are at odds over setting a water conductivity standard and other safeguards to protect the environment from mountaintop removal mining. The discussion comes amid a White House review of a U.S. EPA interim guidance document setting a federal conductivity standard for reviewing Appalachian mining permits. The West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) is appealing in court a decision by the state's Environmental Quality Board ordering the agency to modify its permit for a Patriot Mining Company Inc. strip mining project in Monongalia County. In issuing its decision, the board sided, at least in part, with environmentalists who urged permit modifications, including a numeric standard for conductivity in nearby waterways. "This particular permit had no limits on conductivity, sulfates, really not much of anything," Petra Wood, a Sierra Club member involved in appealing the permit, said in an interview. At issue is a state National Pollutant Discharge Elimination system or NPDES permit, which EPA reviews. This particular project does not require a Section 404 Clean Water Act permit from the Army Corps of Engineers. The Environmental Quality Board -- a panel of five experts appointed by the governor for five-year terms -- did not set the conductivity standard as environmentalists wanted but called on the DEP to include one as part of a revised permit. The decision thrust the board into a national debate over the proper way to examine mining's effects to Appalachian waters. Conductivity is the measure of how well waters can carry an electric charge. An EPA study has found higher conductivity levels downstream from mountaintop mines and valley fills ( <http://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2010/04/01/archive/1> E&ENews PM, April 1, 2010). While conductivity is not in itself a pollutant -- a point DEP is stressing in its appeal -- environmentalists and researchers are increasingly using it as a barometer of water health. "The board finds that the mining operation has the opportunity and potential to improve water quality," said Board Chairman Edward Snyder when issuing the ruling last month. "The board finds that there is a strong positive correlation between conductivity and diminishing macro invertebrate community health." But the DEP believes the board overstepped its legal bounds by mandating a conductivity standard. "Neither [the Environmental Quality Board] nor the DEP have the authority to impose a water quality standard that does not currently exist in state law," DEP attorney Jennifer Hughes said in an email exchange. And even though the board's decision applied to a specific permit, DEP officials believe it sets a precedent for future action. "This appeal has never been about this one permit modification," Hughes said. "It has always been an attempt to impose a statewide numeric standard for conductivity through a back-door process." Environmental advocates are dismayed at what they see as the state's assault on efforts to protect the environment from mining. "It's kind of hard to understand in my mind," Wood said. But West Virginia politicians have usually been keen to protect the mining industry, worried about jobs and the economy. "This was the worst ruling I've ever seen out of the Environmental Quality Board as far as a lack of respect for the rule of law," DEP Secretary Randy Huffman told reporter Ken Ward Jr. with The Charleston Gazette. Part of the appeal, pending before the Kanawha County Circuit Court, is the DEP's objection to the board considering EPA's interim guidance and related information, including the agency's study on conductivity, something the Sierra Club highlighted as part of its efforts to modify the mining permit. "DEP believes that, at best, the evidence presented by the Sierra Club demonstrated that there may be a correlation between high conductivity levels and the loss of certain sensitive species," Hughes said. "The evidence did not show that high conductivity levels cause harm to aquatic life." The National Mining Association is fighting the guidance in court, saying it amounts to rulemaking without the agency going through the proper channels, and the state of West Virginia along with DEP are plaintiffs in the case. Earlier this month, the mining group released a study of its own aimed at undercutting EPA's findings. The report, prepared by Denver-based GEI Consultants Inc., questioned EPA's assumptions about aquatic bugs and considered other findings flawed ( <http://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2011/04/01/archive/4> E&ENews PM, April 1). Testing conductivity Opponents of EPA's guidance, especially lawmakers in Congress, say commercially sold water like San Pellegrino and Perrier exceed the agency's numeric standard for conductivity. They say it is evidence of the agency's overreach and its agenda to curtail coal mining in Appalachia. "People who are working the mines in my district are very concerned that the waters coming out of the mines have to be better than Perrier," said Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-Va.) in an interview earlier this year while pushing a budget rider to stop EPA from enforcing the guidance. The website PolitiFact, which routinely checks politicians' assertions, found that Evian, Perrier and San Pellegrino did in fact exceed EPA's standard. However, scientists and advocates say opponents are missing the point and ignoring the effects of conductivity on Appalachian wildlife. "The science demonstrates that stream life present in waters contaminated by mine waste is killed when salinity levels rise above levels that would not be toxic to humans who may drink such water," EPA spokesman Richard Yost told PolitiFact. "Aquatic organisms and people respond to salinity in very different ways, so it is not technically valid to make direct comparisons between healthy levels of salinity in central Appalachian streams and acceptable levels of salinity in drinking water." ____________________________________ Peter Morgan Project Attorney Sierra Club Environmental Law Program 1650 38th St. Ste. 102W Boulder, CO 80301 (303) 449-5595 x102 (303) 449-6520 (fax) CONFIDENTIAL LEGAL COMMUNICATION/WORK PRODUCT This email may contain privileged and confidential communications and/or confidential attorney work product. If you receive this email inadvertently, please reply and notify the sender and delete all versions from your system. Thank you. [View Less]

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Fwd: Hydrofracking Team Call tonight
by Paul Wilson 27 Apr '11

27 Apr '11

anybody planning on being on this call? thx, paul ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Sierra Club Activist Network <community.manager(a)sierraclub.org> Date: Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 12:46 PM Subject: Hydrofracking Team Call tonight To: pjgrunt(a)gmail.com Paul, you have a group bulletin from *Hydrofracking Team<http://connect.sierraclub.org/Team/Hydrofracking_Team> *. *Visit Hydrofracking Team.<http://connect.sierraclub.org/Team/Hydrofracking_Team> * Message:Don't … [View More]

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WVDEP appeals major water quality ruling for New Hill mine/ash dump
by James Kotcon 27 Apr '11

27 Apr '11

>From Coal Tattoo. JBK WVDEP appeals major water quality ruling April 26, 2011 by Ken Ward Jr. Well, WVDEP Secretary Randy Huffman called it the worst ruling I’ve ever seen out of the EQB as far as a lack of respect for the rule of law, so it probably is no surprise that the agency has appeal the state Environmental Quality Board’s decision in the case over International Coal Group’s New Hill West surface mine in Monongalia County. I’ve posted a copy of the WVDEP appeal, filed in the … [View More]

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Re: [EC] interesting energy reading
by James Kotcon 23 Apr '11

23 Apr '11

am more than a little concerned about the Obama Administration's continued emphasis on nuclear and "Clean Coal" technologies, but if he is successful in cutting tax subsidies for fossil fuels by $46 billion, that would go a long way toward letting the market lead us to a clean energy future. I am also impressed by their predictions of 6 cents/kwh for residential solar power by 2030. If that happens, coal is done, because when a home solar panel is cheaper than coal, no one will be investing in … [View More]

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