We're playing a little catchup today, posting some recent news stories about our campaign to restore voting rights to former felons who have served their debt to society, starting with an especially strong one from today's Danville Advocate-Messenger

FRANKFORT — Tayna Fogle’s grandmother always was excited when she got to vote. It was an excitement Fogle couldn’t initially grasp. But then Fogle made some bad decisions and wound up a convicted felon facing a 10-year sentence.

After serving her time, which ended up being just under seven years in prison, Fogle was released, her debt paid. She was free but still couldn’t do one thing she wanted to do: vote.

And that’s when she understood her grandmother’s excitement.

“I didn’t understand it at first until my rights were taken away from me,” she said. “I still get emotional just remembering how I felt.”

Kentucky is one of the most stringent states when it comes to giving voting rights to convicted felons. Once convicted felons have completed their sentences and paid all restitution, they can only have their voting rights restored through an executive pardon from the governor. 

To read the full Danville Advocate-Messenger story, click HERE.  

Sad news, the first coal mine fatality in Kentucky in 2010 happened today.

Travis G. Brock, 29, an underground miner, died from what the news report are calling a "rib roll."

According to news reports, a rib roll is when a coal support pillar, divided by a rock seam, collapses . This sounds a lot like... a roof fall to me.

He was killed at 9:15 AM today. He operated a continuous miner, which is a machine with carbide teeth that digs the coal at the face of the deep mine. He worked for a coal company owned by Bledsoe Coal Co., and Bledsoe Coal is owned by Richmond, VA based James River Coal Co. The mine was in Leslie County at Abner Branch.

Our thoughts and prayers go out to his family and friends.

KFTC members came to Frankfort yesterday to raise money for after-school programs, mental health services, clean water, and Meals on Wheels – one cupcake at a time.

Members from across the state baked up all sorts of goodies in the name of justice – Kentucky shaped sugar cookies, Depression Bread (which uses no eggs or milk), fudge fresh from Cave City, loaves of dill bread, and from McKinley Sumner, his famous no-bake peanut butter cookies.  The money raised was turned into the governor's office.

It was great day. Here's a recap from Jefferson County member Beth Bissmeyer, shown here (right) with Jefferson County member Becki Winchel, who contributed the Kentucky-shaped cookies

Our bake sale booth caught a lot of people on the way to the cafeteria

"Yesterday, the day after Gov. Beshear gave his budget address, KFTC held a Bake Sale for the Budget at the Capitol to emphasize the need for progressive tax reform and to raise a little bit of money to help reduce the state's projected $1.5 billion budget shortfall. Citizens from all across the state turned out to the Capitol donned in aprons and with baked goods in hand to lobby for the Kentucky Forward Plan, HB 13, sponsored by Rep. Jim Wayne of Louisville.

"Whereas Gov. Beshear's proposal to address the budget crisis (crossing his fingers and praying his gambling bill passes and makes tons o'cash, which it won't) doesn't actually begin to tackle the problem. Kentucky's tax system is flawed. Period. Right now, the highest tax share falls on the working class and low-income households. I fall under the second-lowest income bracket, so I pay a higher percentage of my income in taxes than the wealthiest 20%. Sound ridiculous? A bit backwards? It should.

"HB 13 would raise $300 million in new revenue while also asking $100 million less in taxes from Kentucky's working poor families. This bill would do this by:

• Balancing our income tax---Giving a modest tax raise on income more than $75,000. It's so small that folks will hardly notice, but it will bring in $234 million a year.
• Reforming our sales tax---Limousine rides, chartered plane flights, golf club memberships, landscaping, and other luxury services aren't taxed right now. Expanding the sales tax to include luxury services would raise $100 million annually.
• Lowering taxes for working families with a state EITC---Establishing a state Earned Income Tax Credit for working parents of families making up to $40,000 would put about $100 million annually back into the pockets of those who are struggling.
• Restoring our estate tax---This tax would exclude farms and would only apply to those who have more than $1 million in assets, like trust funds and inheritances. This would generate $22 million annually.

KFTC Chair KA Owens delivering the proceeds from the bake sale to the Governor's office

We've been urged to tighten our belts. We've been told to cut back in these tough economic times, but what about the working poor who have been trying to survive on tight budgets for years? What about the first-generation college student who is forced to work full-time to pay for tuition that increases several percent each semester? What about the working mother? What about people who have benefited from important social services? Enough is enough. It's time we have real progressive tax reform in Kentucky."

What can you do?

Please call your legislator and urge them to support HB 13!  Calling the legislative message line (1-800-372-7181) is a quick and easy way to tell your legislators what you think.

Don't know who your representatives are? Just check out this site.

Press coverage

We managed to get a fair amount of press coverage of the Bake Sale for the Budget. Check out the links!

• Coverage from Louisville's FOX 41. Video highlight: Greg selling a Bowling Green brownie to Rep. Jody Richards!
  
• Great coverage from WAVE 3 that features rock stars Jerry Moody, Greg Capillo, and Dana Beasley Brown.
  
• Channel 36 in Lexington.
  
• WHAS 11's story
  
• WKYT's coverage
  
• "Advocates sweeten state’s sour financial woes with bake sale" from the Bluegrass Politics blog.
  
• Ronnie Ellis's news story.
  

You can find links to watch the debate live here or you can listen to it live on WV Public Radio.

The Canary Project will also try to do some live streaming video interviews with members of the audience. You will be able to watch these interviews by clicking this Ustream link.

If you have suggested questions you would like asked please post them in the comment section for this blog post.

Downstream Strategies, an environmental consulting firm, recently released a report that urges Appalachian states to invest in developing their renewable energy infrastructure. According to an ABC News story the report:

predicts production in West Virginia, Kentucky, Virginia and Tennessee will fall nearly 50 percent within a decade and urges those states to adopt laws, low-interest loan programs and other measures to support the development of renewable energy sources.

The report goes on to say that this decline will be in part due to competition from cleaner burning natural gas but it also points to a dramatic decrease in easy to recover coal and increasing environmental controls.

Studies have shown that local ownership of renewable energy projects generates greater jobs and local revenues than corporate-owned projects. Therefore, support for local ownership of energy development will help to maximize the potential economic benefit of developing renewables.

Improvements and investment in energy efficiency can also generate new jobs and revenue, while saving businesses and residents money on energy consumption. Supporting measures include: energy efficiency resource standards, expanded demand response initiatives, building energy codes, low-income efficiency programs, and research and development support.

Finally, policy attention must be focused on developing workforce programs that will provide the skills and knowledge required for emerging and potential renewable energy industries, and should be coupled with energy-and investment-related policies aimed at spurring project development. 

According the the Energy Information Administration web site, power plants reduced their coal consumption by ten percent last year and the projections are for demand to continue to be low in 2010.

As Senator Byrd said late last year, "West Virginians can choose to anticipate change and adapt to it, or resist and be overrun by it. The time has arrived for the people of the Mountain State to think long and hard about which course they want to choose." (Byrd, 2009)

You can download the report here. And a link to the ABC News story about the release of the report is here.

Dr. Margaret Palmer recently co-authored a major new study on the environmental and health effects from mountaintop removal mining and valley fills and she will appear on the hit show the Colbert Report Monday night January 18th.

The scientific evidence of the severe environmental and human impacts from mountaintop mining is strong and irrefutable," says lead author Dr. Margaret Palmer of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science and Department of Entomology, University of Maryland, College Park. "Its impacts are pervasive and long lasting and there is no evidence that any mitigation practices successfully reverse the damage it causes.

 The scientists involved in the study take the unusual political step of calling for an end to mountaintop removal and valley fills.

Mining permits are being issued despite the preponderance of scientific evidence that impacts are pervasive and irreversible and that mitigation cannot compensate for losses. Considering environmental impacts of MTM/VF, in combination with evidence that the health of people living in surface-mining regions of the central Appalachians may be compromised by mining activities, we conclude that MTM/VF permits should not be granted unless new methods can be subjected to rigorous peer-review and shown to remedy these problems.

To read more analysis of the study you can visit an earlier blog post here.

We need your help!

The Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement (OSMRE) is charged with enforcing the law on mountaintop removal. Unfortunately, decades of rollbacks and giving in to coal industry corruption have left coalfield communities virtually undefended. Exceptions to the surface mine law have become the rule, and problems with dust, blasting, toxic water and giant wastelands remaining unreclaimed are impacting the lives of thousands across the coalfields.

The OSMRE is asking for advice on how to enforce the law - and we need you to offer it. Comments are due by January 19th - please click here to send  in sample comments or offer your own. Many of you have had personal experiences with the OSMRE - and we encourage you to write about them.

When the OSMRE doesn’t hear from citizens, they assume you have nothing to say - please let them know we are paying attention and we expect the laws to be enforced.

Thanks for your help!

“Jeff Biggers exposes the truth about coal in America—how the myth of “clean coal” destroys even family histories. But Biggers is a long-time warrior in another fight—to stabilize climate and preserve a good life for young people. Let us hope his message about dirty coal is read far and wide.”—James Hansen, NASA Goddard Center, author of Storms of My Grandchildren



Reckoning at Eagle Creek takes us on a journey into the secret history of coal mining in the American heartland. Set in the ruins of his family’s strip-mined homestead in the Shawnee National Forest in southern Illinois, Biggers delivers a deeply personal portrait of the largely overlooked human and environmental costs of our nation’s dirty energy policy over the past two centuries. Reckoning at Eagle Creek digs deep into the tangled roots of the coal industry beginning with the policies of Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson. It chronicles the removal of Native Americans, and the hidden story of legally sanctioned black slavery in the land of Lincoln. It uncovers a century of regulatory negligence, vividly describing the epic mining wars for union recognition and workplace safety, and the devastating environmental consequences of industrial strip-mining.

 At the heart of our national debate over climate change and the crucial transition toward clean energy, is the Obama administration’s controversial pursuit of “clean coal.” Biggers exposes the fallacy that lies at the heart of this policy and shatters the Big Coal marketing myth that Illinois represents the “Saudi Arabia of coal.” Reckoning at Eagle Creek is ultimately an exposé of “historicide,” one that traces coal’s harrowing legacy through the great American family saga of sacrifice and resiliency and the extraordinary process of recovering our nation’s memory. Coal will never be called clean or cheap again.

“As this fine book makes clear, coal has always and ever been a curse, poisoning everything and everyone it touches—right up to the climate on which we depend for our daily bread. What a story!” —Bill McKibben, author of Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet

“[An] enriching history…An important look at the staggering human and environmental costs of mining.”—Kirkus Reviews

"Nobody writes about Appalachia like Jeff Biggers. His voice is a swirl of history and memory, of fact and analysis, of hillbilly wisdom and journalistic outrage. Reckoning at Eagle Creek is bigger and brawnier than a memoir or cultural chronicle—it’s a passionate howl from the dark heart of American coal country."—Jeff Goodell, author, Big Coal

“Part historical narrative, part family memoir, part pastoral paean, and part jeremiad against the abuse of the land and of the men who gave and continue to give their lives to (and often for) the mines, [Reckoning at Eagle Creek] puts a human face on the industry that supplies nearly half of America’s energy…it offers a rare historical perspective on the vital yet little considered industry, along with a devastating critique of the myth of ‘clean coal.’ ”—Publishers Weekly

For more info and to watch a video trailer of the book, visit: www.jeffbiggers.com

It might finally be the dawn of a new day in Frankfort.  House Speaker Greg Stumbo is saying that now is the time for comprehensive revenue reforms. 

Noting that only 12 of every 100 students in Kentucky who enter the ninth grade graduate from college, Stumbo pointed to the need for revenue reforms.  “I think the debate should continue about our entire taxing structure, the entire revenue streams in this state,” Stumbo said. “If we were running a business like we run government, we probably would be broke because we don’t re-examine and adapt our revenue sources to the changes in the economy.”  You can find the full article on Bluegrass Politics, here.

Speaker Stumbo is also a co-chair on the poverty task force, which has been learning about the work that a state Earned Income Tax Credit would do to help keep families out of poverty. 

If you appreciate this kind of insight, call Speaker Stumbo to thank him and ask him to cosponsor legislation by Rep. Jim Wayne that would add a measure of fairness to our tax system and raise more than $300 million in new revenue. 

Phone Numbers:
Home: (606) 886-9953
Annex: (502) 564-2363
Capitol: (502) 564-3366

And while you're making calls, call Governor Beshear and tell him that his lack of leadership is unacceptable.  (His office's response to Speaker Stumbo's statement?  “Now is not the time to raise broad-based taxes on Kentuckians ... Tax reform means different things to different people, and we will continue to listen to whatever ideas the legislators may have.”)  You can reach the Governor's office at (502) 564-2611, or you can email him here.

202-224-3954

(The following text is an opinion piece U.S. Senator Robert Byrd issued on Thursday.  It appears below in its entirety.) Click here if you want to list to the audio version from Senator Byrd.

For more than 100 years, coal has been the backbone of the Appalachian economy. Even today, the economies of more than 20 states depend to some degree on the mining of coal. About half of all the electricity generated in America and about one quarter of all the energy consumed globally is generated by coal.

Change is no stranger to the coal industry.  Think of the huge changes which came with the onset of the Machine Age in the late 1800’s.  Mechanization has increased coal production and revenues, but also has eliminated jobs, hurting the economies of coal communities. In 1979, there were 62,500 coal miners in the Mountain State. Today there are about 22,000. In recent years, West Virginia has seen record high coal production and record low coal employment.

And change is undeniably upon the coal industry again.  The increased use of mountaintop removal mining means that fewer miners are needed to meet company production goals. Meanwhile the Central Appalachian coal seams that remain to be mined are becoming thinner and more costly to mine. Mountaintop removal mining, a declining national demand for energy, rising mining costs and erratic spot market prices all add up to fewer jobs in the coal fields. 

These are real problems. They affect real people. And West Virginia’s elected officials are rightly concerned about jobs and the economic impact on local communities.  I share those concerns.  But the time has come to have an open and honest dialogue about coal’s future in West Virginia.

Let’s speak the truth. The most important factor in maintaining coal-related jobs is demand for coal. Scapegoating and stoking fear among workers over the permitting process is counter-productive.

Coal companies want a large stockpile of permits in their back pockets because that implies stability to potential investors. But when coal industry representatives stir up public anger toward federal regulatory agencies, it can damage the state’s ability to work with those agencies to West Virginia’s benefit. This, in turn, may create the perception of ineffectiveness within the industry, which can drive potential investors away.

Let’s speak a little more truth here. No deliberate effort to do away with the coal industry could ever succeed in Washington because there is no available alternative energy supply that could immediately supplant the use of coal for base load power generation in America. That is a stubborn fact that vexes some in the environmental community, but it is reality.

It is also a reality that the practice of mountaintop removal mining has a diminishing constituency in Washington. It is not a widespread method of mining, with its use confined to only three states.  Most members of Congress, like most Americans, oppose the practice, and we may not yet fully understand the effects of mountaintop removal mining on the health of our citizens. West Virginians may demonstrate anger toward the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) over mountaintop removal mining, but we risk the very probable consequence of shouting ourselves out of any productive dialogue with EPA and our adversaries in the Congress.

Some have even suggested that coal state representatives in Washington should block any advancement of national health care reform legislation until the coal industry’s demands are met by the EPA. I believe that the notion of holding the health care of over 300 million Americans hostage in exchange for a handful of coal permits is beyond foolish; it is morally indefensible.  It is a non-starter, and puts the entire state of West Virginia and the coal industry in a terrible light.

To be part of any solution, one must first acknowledge a problem. To deny the mounting science of climate change is to stick our heads in the sand and say “deal me out.” West Virginia would be much smarter to stay at the table.

 The 20 coal-producing states together hold some powerful political cards. We can have a part in shaping energy policy, but we must be honest brokers if we have any prayer of influencing coal policy on looming issues important to the future of coal like hazardous air pollutants, climate change, and federal dollars for investments in clean coal technology.

Most people understand that America cannot meet its current energy needs without coal, but there is strong bi-partisan opposition in Congress to the mountaintop removal method of mining it. We have our work cut out for us in finding a prudent and profitable middle ground – but we will not reach it by using fear mongering, grandstanding and outrage as a strategy. As your United States Senator, I must represent the opinions and the best interests of the entire Mountain State, not just those of coal operators and southern coalfield residents who may be strident supporters of mountaintop removal mining.

I have spent the past six months working with a group of coal state Democrats in the Senate, led by West Virginia native Senator Tom Carper (D-Del.), drafting provisions to assist the coal industry in more easily transitioning to a lower-carbon economy. These include increasing funding for clean coal projects and easing emission standards and timelines, setting aside billions of dollars for coal plants that install new technology and continue using coal. These are among the achievable ways coal can continue its major role in our national energy portfolio. It is the best way to step up to the challenge and help lead change.

The truth is that some form of climate legislation will likely become public policy because most American voters want a healthier environment.  Major coal-fired power plants and coal operators operating in West Virginia have wisely already embraced this reality, and are making significant investments to prepare.

The future of coal and indeed of our total energy picture lies in change and innovation. In fact, the future of American industrial power and our economic ability to compete globally depends on our ability to advance energy technology.

The greatest threats to the future of coal do not come from possible constraints on mountaintop removal mining or other environmental regulations, but rather from rigid mindsets, depleting coal reserves, and the declining demand for coal as more power plants begin shifting to biomass and natural gas as a way to reduce emissions.

Fortunately, West Virginia has a running head-start as an innovator. Low-carbon and renewable energy projects are already under development in West Virginia, including:  America’s first integrated carbon capture and sequestration project on a conventional coal-fired power plant in Mason County; the largest wind power facility in the eastern United States; a bio-fuel refinery in Nitro; three large wood pellet plants in Fayette, Randolph, and Gilmer Counties; and major dams capable of generating substantial electricity.

Change has been a constant throughout the history of our coal industry. West Virginians can choose to anticipate change and adapt to it, or resist and be overrun by it.  One thing is clear.  The time has arrived for the people of the Mountain State to think long and hard about which course they want to choose.