Governor Tom Wolf is weighing a bill that would make it easier for an energy company to obtain permits for the controversial process of long-wall coal mining beneath a state park in southwest Pennsylvania but which opponents say could damage streams in the area. Senate Bill 624 landed on Wolf’s desk on Tuesday after being [...]
When President Trump announced the U.S. was pulling out of the Paris climate agreement, he said he was doing it to protect American workers. He gave a shout out to the coal industry, and a surprise mention to the Acosta Deep mine in Somerset County. “A big opening of a brand, new mine. It’s unheard [...]
A rush to build power plants fueled by cheap natural gas from the Marcellus Shale will swell power supply in the region coordinated by PJM Interconnection, operator of the largest power grid in North America, driving down prices and forcing the closure of many coal-fired plants over the next four years, according to a new [...]
A new proposal by state senate Republican leaders takes aim at an ongoing legal challenge to coal mining in a western Pennsylvania state park. The case, brought three years ago by the Center for Coalfield Justice and Pennsylvania Sierra Club, challenges the legality of Consol Energy’s 3,000-acre Bailey Mine extension. The groups say it would damage [...]
Governor Tom Wolf is urging Pennsylvania’s congressional delegation to ensure thousands of coal miners can keep their healthcare benefits. Wolf says without passage of the federal Miners Protection Act, benefits would expire at the end of the month, leaving miners and their families without coverage. The bill would use interest from the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation [...]
The reliability of electric power supply in the U.S. northeast and mid-Atlantic states would not be hurt if generators burned more natural gas and renewables or if the recent decline in coal and nuclear generation continues, the operator of the nation’s biggest electric grid said on Thursday. PJM Interconnection, which operates the grid serving some [...]
Among the first accomplishments of the new Congress was undoing a regulation barely one month old — the Department of Interior’s Stream Protection Rule. The agency finalized the rule in December, in one of the Obama administration’s final acts. But using a law called the Congressional Review Act, the new Congress quickly voted to take [...]
A judge has ordered a halt to mining underneath a state park in Greene County. Environmental Hearing Board judge Steven C. Beckman issued the order Tuesday, regarding a Consol Energy plan to expand its Bailey mine complex beneath Ryerson Station State Park. Environmental groups had argued the plan would have damaged a high-quality stream in the park. [...]
Pennsylvania’s Environmental Hearing Board has temporarily blocked coal mining near a trout stream in Greene County’s Ryerson Station State Park after two environmental groups challenged the permit. The order, issued Friday by Judge Steven Beckman, prohibits Consol Energy from longwall mining within 500 feet of the park’s Kent Run stream, until the board can rule [...]
Coal is projected to surpass natural gas as the dominant fuel source in electric power generation this winter, according to a recent analysis by the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Until the mid-2000’s about half the electricity in the country was produced by burning coal, and 20 percent or less came from gas. But the recent boom [...]
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