West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin is scheduled to meet on Monday with Bo Webb, a group of other coalfield residents, and perhaps some experts on coal’s impacts.
Bo asked for the meeting back in November, after Manchin held his closed-door summit with coal executives to come up with a strategy for combating the Obama administration’s “war on coal.”
The schedule I’ve seen calls for WVDEP Secretary Randy Huffman and some other Manchin aides to attend.
Among the more interesting things to watch here will be whether top politicians — such as Sen. Jay Rockefeller and Reps. Nick Rahall and Shelley Moore Capito — show up. They all seemed to have plenty of time in their busy schedules to attend the coal executives summit. Do they care as much about what coalfield residents — their constituents — have to say?
Bo and the other residents apparently pushed pretty hard to have their meeting with Manchin open to the media, but that was a non-starter with Gov. Manchin, who insisted that both meetings with industry and the citizens be private. We’ll see if the West Virginia press corps pays as much attention to this meeting as they did when Manchin had his sit-down with coal executives. The meeting is set for 3 p.m. and a press briefing for 4:30 p.m.
Also remember that this meeting comes after Sen. Robert C. Byrd issued his statement calling on the coal industry to “embrace the future” and after the publication in the prestigious journal Science of an article clearly outlining the devastating effects of mountaintop removal.
Stay tuned …
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Yay Bo!
and
That photo of Manchin being the coal industry’s boy just about sums up all that is wrong in WV government and the trickle-down effect on environmental law lack of enforcement.
We should turn this into an opportunity to offer renewable energy projects as a solution to the lost revenue of MTR mining. WV needs to have a viable energy policy which should include a vast array of renewables to replace that lost from the prohibition against blowing up the mountains in the near future. Our whole economy is based on coal mining and gambling. We need to develop our eco-tourism, green manufacturing jobs, and high tech.
It’s time for Don Blankenship, Gov. Joe Manchin and all the other people who support MTR to admit that it’s over. The devastation of the environment and people is criminal and there was never a plan for long term employment. There are many other and better energy options that will provide more jobs without destroying our mountains. Let’s move forward with those and leave MTR behind.