Watch the video here

This afternoon on WYKT news, anchors Bill Bryant and Barbara Bailey "interviewed" a representative of Coal Education Development and Resources (CEDAR) in a completely uncritical manner.  It almost sounded as if they were reading straight from CEDAR's website.  Where is the discussion about the impact of coal on people living below MTR mines?  Why don't they ask about the environmental costs of the extraction and burning of coal?  If you're as disgusted at this as we are, please take a moment to contact the station and ask if they'll give equal time on the air to a member of Kentuckians for the Commonwealth.

A group of enthusiastic University of Kentucky Students has started a KFTC organization on campus and by the end of the first week back to school, they have already amassed a long list of accomplishments. 

The group has had five information tabling events on campus, two voter registration days, and as of Tuesday night, their very first meeting.  Thirty-five students came to the very first meeting - a strong mix of freshmen, upper-classmen, veteran activists, and people brand new to organizing. 

Three co-coordinators stepped forward to collectively help lead the group, as did TEN other officers, including folks to head up publicity, fundraising, flyering, social events, and many other areas.

Students had an open discussion about issues to pursue as an organization and core campaigns emerged such as Voter Empowerment on campus, working to restore voting rights to former felons, and fighting against mountaintop removal mining. Other suggested campaigns included working with UK staff for better salaries, lower tuition, and working for domestic partner benefits for UK employees.

If you're a UK student, consider joining us for our weekly meeting.

UK KFTC Meetings – Tuesdays 8pm in the UK Student Center's MLK Cultural Center.

This summer KFTC took a group of students from Kentucky's Governor's Scholars Program to visit mountaintop removal sites and to meet with members of coalfield communities.  Afterwards, some of the students wrote poems reflecting on their experiences. 

The following are poems by two of the students:

A Blackheart
Dark stone rests beneath the peaks,
Waiting for its time to be carved with pick and sledge.
Anticipating the warmth of sunlight,
And the infernoof the forge.

Uncovered, its value is found in the making of men.
Unveiled, the soot of the earth is now coveted.
Unleashed, it burns bright, bringing energy and light to the human race.

Awe and reverence become jaded by the working of time,
Exchanged for an endless hunger, lustful for the power of Coal.
Jagged spades and skewers of steel pick up the pace, 
Eagerly biting into earth, rock, and verdant wood.

Great mountains crumble beneath crashes of flame, 
And the valleys fare stopped with cadavers of once fertile land.  
Dark, noxious pools wait silently on the slopes,
Poised to bring death to the living below.

In the quest for the dark stone,
Our thirst for power been quenched with blood.
Hands stained crimson, some begin to perceive the calamity before us.

Entire forests swept away,
Soil reduced to fruitless sand,
Species struggle to survive the onslaught on their land,
While our desired mineral becomes ever more ephemeral.

Excavation turned to evisceration, 
Nature is ravaged like a spoil of some evil war.
It is up to our race—our generation—to right the course,
To repent our crimes, to seek new light-bringers, and to give back unto Gaia.

Now is the time to act, 
Before we find our world and our hearts tainted,
As black as the ashen Coal under the mountains.

Philip Houtz
7/19/07
Winchester

Appalachian Memories
An unexpected class.
Definitely not my first choice.
Unsure of its content.  Skeptical of its uses.

Bluegrass music.
Sweaty bus rides.
Eastern accents.
Hoedowns.
Forested hills.
It seemed so simplistic at first.
Then…the destruction of ignorance.

Blasted mountaintops.
Polluted streams.
Lakes of sludge.
Displaced people.
Loss.
Prejudice.
Censorship.

A class I didn’t want.
But…
One that opened my eyes.

Ali Proctor
GSP 2007
Louisville

Click here to register for KFTC's 2007 Annual Membership Meeting

This year's Annual Membership meeting is coming up in about a month, October 5th-7th.  We really want to encourage all of our members (new or old) and their families to come out to it.  It is a great opportunity to relax, meet new people, reflect on our victories from the past year and to plan for the future.  We have yet to set our agenda for the meeting, but our registration form for the meeting is already online.  So, if you already know you want to attend please go ahead and register.

Yesterday's editions of the Bowling Green Daily News had a very favorable article on its front page covering the possibly creation of a new Warren County Chapter of KFTC.  Jody Richards had better watch out, now that KFTC is organizing in his district!

The need for a group like KFTC hit home for [Dana Beasley] Brown last week, when she attended Monday's Summer Stroll in the Westside-St. Joseph neighborhood. She noticed some residents sitting on their porch, not joining in the stroll, and wondered why the caravan of city officials and other neighbors didn't stop to chat. Brown said she understands that a Summer Stroll invites all residents to come along, but not everyone has a working-class, 9-to-5 family life.

As part of our voter empowerment strategy for this year, our Steering Committee, has authorized the hiring of several temporary Electoral Organizers, to be based out of our Whitesburg, Lexington, and Louisville offices for the 10 weeks leading up to the election in November. We are hoping to fill these positions quickly, so if you or someone you know are interested in doing on-the-ground organizing work, please send a letter and your resume our organizing director, Lisa Abbott.  You can read a full job description here.

With a vote of 87-10 the Kentucky House of Representatives passed the unprecedentedly expensive coal-conversion subsidy bill.  Representatives Wayne and Riner attempted to amend the bill to require that the coal-conversion plants capture CO2 emissions and to lower the bar for companies applying for renewable energy incentives, but the amendments were not even considered.  The bill now moves to the Senate.  It will be heard tomorrow in the Senate A&R committee.

Here is a list of those who voted against the bill:

• Rep. Higdon

• Rep. Marzian

• Rep. Meeks

• Rep. Burch

• Rep. Wayne

• Rep. Floyd

• Rep. Palumbo

• Rep. Riner

• Rep. Stein

• Rep. Belcher

We are asking that our members and supporters call the Legislative Message Line 1-800-372-7181 to thank the Representatives who took a stand and voted against this bill.  Also, please leave a message for members of the Senate A&R committee urging them to oppose House Bill 1

KFTC members from Louisville delivering hard copied emails addressed to Speaker Richards

As of around 1pm today we've had approximately 50 people come out to Frankfort to lobby against new subsidies for coal companies and to sit in on the Appropriations and Revenue committee hearing on the issue.  Prior to the committee meeting, a group of members from Louisville hand-delivered hard copies of nearly 500 emails addressed to Speaker Richards to one of his aides.

During the first couple hours of the hearing the committee heard from a geologist from UK, Tom Fitzgerald from the Kentucky Resources Council, and a representative from U of L who spoke about renewable energy technologies.  The focus of most of the discussion and questioning in the morning was on economic and technological feasibility of carbon sequestration.  The bill's language apparently requires coal-conversion plants to be "carbon capture ready," but from what we can discern this doesn't really mean anything.  There are no specific requirements to make a plant "carbon capture ready," which would make this language effectively meaningless.

Now, after lunch, the committee has begun to hear testimony from private citizens.  KFTC members Carl Shoupe and Truman Hurt just wrapped up their discussion coal field life and their views of the coal economy as lifetime residents of Eastern KY, and now our new Canary Fellow Teri Blanton is up before the committee giving some pretty fierce testimony.

You ought to be able to watch some of this testimony live on KET's website, here.  Later, when video of the hearing has been archived we will post a link to that as well.  Keep checking back for updates.

Truman Hurt and Carl Shoupe speaking before the committee		Members sitting in on the A&R meeting

We had a good number of KFTC members and allies in Frankfort this afternoon.  Today was our first chance to read over the new legislation that came out of the closed-door meetings between members of House and Senate leadership last week.

Our lobby teams were able to meet with several legislators today.  Some of those we spoke with were surprised and dismayed with the content of the proposed legislation.  Despite this it still looks as if stopping this legislation will be an uphill battle for us.

We also learned today that the House Appropriations and Revenue committee will be taking public testimony from 10am until 5pm tomorrow, Tuesday the 21st.  This will be our best opportunity yet to lay out all of the problems with coal-conversion technologies and the proposed subsidies for Peabody Energy.  To make the best use of this meeting, we want be able to pack the meeting room with our supporters while we testify before the committee.

ACTION #1:
Join us for an exciting day of lobbying in Frankfort!  Beginning at 8:30am we will be in the cafeteria briefing folks and sending out teams to do early lobbying.  At 10:00am we will move to Room 154 of the Annex for the A&R hearing.  If you arrive after 10am you can just meet us in room 154.

ACTION #2:
If you can't come to Frankfort, you can still help raise the opposition to this bad bill.

If you haven't done so already, please visit www.No2PeabodyCoal.org to see KFTC's newspaper ad against Peabody and the special session and to take action!

ACTION #3:
In addition, you can also contact Speaker Richards and your own legislators by calling the toll-free message line at 1-800-372-7181.

MESSAGE: “I urge you NOT to give hundreds of millions in taxpayer subsidies to the coal industry. This is a bad deal for Kentucky.”

UPDATE 8-19-07:  Yesterday, our Land Reform Committee decided to make Tuesday our focus day for the week.  We hope to have a large, visible presence at the Appropriations and Revenue committee meeting that morning followed by a day of lobbying.  If you must choose one day to come out to Frankfort, please come Tuesday.  If you cannot make it Tuesday, we still plan on being in Frankfort every other day, including Monday.  Contact one of our organizers if you plan on attending another day.

Friday evening Governor Fletcher called another emergency session of the General Assembly to pass legislation to subsidize Peabody Energy's building of a coal-to-natural-gas plant in Western Kentucky.  This comes after an agreement on the legislation was reached between leaders in both parties after two weeks of closed-door negotiations.

In response to this KFTC members have decided to hold a teach-in and lobby day in Frankfort on Monday to bring people together in opposition to giving $300 million dollars in subsidies to Peabody Energy.  We will be meeting in room 129 in the Capitol Annex Building in Frankfort at noon to begin the teach-in, where we will learn what the impact of the proposed legislation will be.  Afterwards, we will present visible opposition to the bill by sending out groups of citizen lobbyists to attempt to block this legislation from passing.  We will continue to lobby against the bill through the rest of the week.

If you are unable to come, please visit our Filthy Fuels pages and send an email to Speaker of the House Richards urging him to no pass this legislation.