HOUSE COAL BILL INTENDS TO BRING DEBATE ON FUEL SOURCE TO ELECTION FOREFRONT

Supporters Hope to Make So-Called ‘War on Coal’ a Big Ticket Item in November

Tamar Hallerman
GHG Monitor
09/21/12

The House of Representatives was expected to vote on a package of coal-related legislation Sept. 21 in an aim to block several key Obama Administration environmental regulations and bring the future of the fuel to the forefront of the national debate less than two months before the November elections. However, the move was seen more as a symbolic one as the measure has little likelihood of being considered in the Democrat-controlled Senate. In its last move before leaving Washington to campaign for re-election, the House began consideration of the “Stop the War on Coal Act,” a package of a handful of bills previously passed by the lower chamber earlier this term. The measure includes provisions that would:

• Bar the Environmental Protection Agency from using the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, vacating a proposal to limit emissions from new fossil fuel-fired power plants while blocking recently-finalized national fuel economy standards for automobiles for model years 2017 to 2025;
• Require an interagency committee to analyze and sign off on the cumulative economic impacts of all future EPA power sector regulations before full promulgation;
• Give states primary regulatory authority over the management, recycling and disposal of coal ash; and
• Prevent the Secretary of the Interior from approving new regulations that could adversely impact employment in coal mines or “diminish the ability” of Americans to produce coal.

House Energy and Commerce Committee leaders said that reconsidering many of the already-passed measures would help bring what they say is the Administration’s “war on coal” to the political forefront.   “The EPA’s outright assault on coal is having a destructive effect on our economy, and we will likely see more and more coal-fired power plants closed and mining operations shut down due to EPA’s outrageous expansion of regulations,” Energy and Power Subcommittee Chairman Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.) said in a statement. “At a time of high unemployment rates, President Obama and his EPA should be working with coal states to create and retain jobs, rather than thwarting economic growth and causing miners to lose their jobs.” The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said that the legislation would reduce future government spending by $245 million over the next five years by barring EPA from regulating greenhouse gases.

Proponents also highlighted a recent announcement from coal producer Alpha Natural Resources—which said earlier this week that it plans to close eight mines and lay off 1,200 workers in Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia—as justification for the legislation. Alpha said it made the decision, in part, because of the current regulatory environment for coal. “A group of government bureaucrats have decided the coal industry isn’t something that they like, so they’re going to try to force it out of business,” Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-Va.), who represents a coal-heavy district in the southwest region of the state, said in a statement. “This is appalling and it must stop. I and others in Congress will fight them.” Frank Maisano, a spokesman for the law firm Bracewell & Giuliani, said that the legislation is important because it highlights the key issue of jobs ahead of the election. “This week’s announcement from Alpha Natural Resources is not the first chip to fall in the coal sector, but it underscores the uncertainty that’s out there,” he told GHG Monitor. “This president has talked about creating jobs and recovering the economy, yet at the same time he talks about an ‘all-of-the-above’ strategy with coal off of that list, so there’s no doubt that these jobs being lost will have consequences on [the industry].”

White House Vows to Kill Legislation

While proponents aimed to drum up support for the bill this week, it remained clear that the measure would have almost no chance of being considered by the Democrat-controlled Senate, which did not take up any of the individual measures as they were passed by the House earlier this year. The White House also said this week that the President would veto the legislation. In a statement of Administration policy issued Sept. 19, the White House said the bill would “undermine” environmental laws and hurt public health and the economy. “The Administration strongly rejects the notion that economic growth and protecting the health of our communities and families are mutually exclusive,” the White House said in the statement. Meanwhile, Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee also expressed their opposition to many of the bill’s provisions. A fact sheet released by minority staff ahead of the vote billed the legislation as the crown jewel of the chamber with “the most anti-environment record in the history of Congress.” “During this period, the House has voted over 300 times on the floor to block environmental regulations, weaken environmental laws and stop environmental research,” the fact sheet said. “The single worst anti-environment bill to be considered in the House is the [‘Stop the War on Coal Act’], which is misleadingly titled.”

Environmental groups criticized the legislation as a political ploy in the final few weeks before the election. “To me this is a classic example of cynical lawmakers playing politics and trying to send sloganeering messages rather than actually addressing legislation in a serious way,” Frank O’Donnell, president of the group Clean Air Watch, told GHG Monitor. “This legislation is clearly designed to give Republicans opportunities to attack Democrats in coal states, including the presidential election and some of the other Congressional races.” He added: “Everyone in town knows the bill is going nowhere and that it’s a big, giant nothing burger that’s certainly a launching pad for political attacks.” 

Lobbying Storm Ahead of Vote

Perhaps predictably, news of the vote sparked a lobbying firestorm this week. The coal industry advocacy group the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity publicized a new study Sept. 18 that concluded that more than 31 GW of coal capacity is going to be shut down in 25 states within the next five years due, at least in part, to EPA regulations. “Our country needs sound energy and environmental policies, and this bill is a critical step to getting us back on the right track,” ACCCE President and CEO Mike Duncan said in an accompanying statement. The National Mining Association also pushed for the legislation.

Meanwhile, environmental groups like Greenpeace aimed to expose the messaging strategy of coal proponents in a counter-campaign. It said that recent lobbying efforts ahead of this week’s vote mirror similar strategies used by the industry over the last 50 years. “For at least five decades, the coal industry deployed deceptive advertising campaigns to scrub its image and delay important clean air standards. An intriguing pattern surfaces of increased rhetoric and advertising whenever rumors of environmental protections circulate,” the group’s website says. “Once government agencies pass air quality regulations, the coal industry then spins their required cleanup using technologies they once opposed as a big achievement… It’s time for Big Coal to stop crying wolf.”

Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney also stepped into the debate by rolling out a pair of new television ads this week criticizing Obama’s coal policies and underscoring his support of the industry. One spot features coal miners saying that “Obama’s ruining the coal industry,” quickly cutting to Romney saying that the country has 250 years worth of coal. “Why wouldn’t we use it?” Romney says in the ad. “Utility bills are up. People wonder how they’re going to have a brighter future if they can’t see how they can make it until the end of the next month.”

Both Candidates Cite Support for Coal Industry

Romney’s ads represent the most recent attempt by the presidential candidate to underscore his support of the coal industry—which plays prominently in the economy of the three critical swing states of Virginia, Ohio and Pennsylvania—on the campaign trail. In his energy blueprint released last month, Romney doubled down on his support of the development of domestic sources of fossil fuels like coal and natural gas. Meanwhile, he has walked back previous comments he made as governor of Massachusetts about the existence of climate change.

President Obama’s re-election campaign has also been quick to criticize Romney’s shift regarding climate change and coal. Last month, Obama’s reelection team ran—and received criticism for—ads in Ohio that criticized Romney for remarks he made about the need to close an aging Massachusetts coal plant while Governor. That ad also touted the President’s support of ‘clean coal’ research, a point also underscored in his recent acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention and this week’s statement of administration policy. “To be clear, the Administration believes that coal is and will remain an important part of our energy mix for decades to come,” the White House said this week. “For that reason, since 2009, the Administration has committed nearly $6 billion in advanced coal research, development and deployment and continues to work with industry on important efforts to demonstrate advanced coal technologies.” Obama was criticized by Republicans earlier this spring for omitting ‘clean coal’ from his campaign website, something he later added to his list of energy priorities.

Both candidates’ remarks about coal reflect an election strategy that has turned sharply from 2008, where rhetoric has shifted from ‘green economy’ and action on climate change to an “all-of-the-above” energy strategy, an approach both candidates have claimed they will pursue if elected. A recent analysis by the New York Times found that campaign donations by the energy industry have also mirrored that shift. It said that the fossil fuel industry has spent more than $153 million on television advertisements this year, nearly four times the $41 million spent by clean energy advocates. The newspaper compared that amount to 2008, when spending on ads promoting renewables outnumbered those hyping fossil fuels $152 million to $109 million, respectively.