Despite Economics And Reality, Wyoming Doubles Down On Coal, Denial, Hatred Of Taxes
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The EPA's Clean Power Plan hadn't even gone into effect prior to Black Thursday, and neither have the actions spelled out in the Paris climate accord. Without regulation, coal's outlook is still bleak."
Godby points out that federal environmental regulation was one factor that brought 40 years of good times to the Wyoming coalfields in the first place. Beginning in the early 1970s, clean-air legislation and subsequent amendments passed by Congress mandated that coal-fired power plants switch to low-sulfur coal in order to reduce nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide emissions, which were causing the acid rain harming lakes and forests in the Northeast and Canada. The Powder River Basin has low-sulfur coal in epic abundance. And by a quirk of geology, it's located near the surface, making it easy and cheap to access and requiring far less labor to extract than the coal in the underground shafts and mountains of West Virginia, Kentucky, and neighboring states.
With demand and revenues now falling, Governor Mead has made a desperate attempt to revive the industry by trying to get new coal ports opened in the Pacific Northwest. The chance of that happening? "Zero," Godby says. "China and its neighbors have a lot of coal available in the region, and getting Wyoming coal over there, given the low margins of potential profit, is way too cost-prohibitive. Plus, Washington and Oregon have made it clear they don't want to be pass-throughs for coal." (The Sierra Club's Beyond Coal campaign has helped by working to move states like Washington and Oregon off coal-fired power while strengthening their commitment to renewable energy.)
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In 2014, the Science Standards Review Committee was prevented by the legislature from adopting national science standards for Wyoming schools because of the way climate change was presented. The standards were finally adopted last September. And in 2015, some members of the school board in Cody sought to have references to climate change struck from textbooks altogether. The proposed action attracted condemnation not only from high school students but also from one of Wyoming's elder statesmen, Cody resident and former U.S. senator Alan K. Simpson, a Republican.
Simpson listened patiently to more than six hours of spirited community debate in which board members said that teaching lessons about climate change was a betrayal of the fossil fuel industry. Then he weighed in. "There is climate change," he said. "It is real. I don't know what the hell it's all about, but I know man is a part of it, and anybody who sends someone out of this school system saying that it's a hoax is goofy."
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http://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/2017-1-january-february/feature/wyomings-great-disconnect
