ACC Members' Update

Washington, D.C. (March 28, 2017) – With the signing of an Executive Order, President Trump delivered on his pledge to help coal by lifting energy restrictions and canceling job-killing regulations. The remarks by President Trump and key members of his cabinet warmly acknowledged the contributions of our nation’s coal miners. They pledged to level the playing field and eliminate federal overreach.

 

President Trump called for an immediate re-evaluation of the "so-called" Clean Power Plan and a lifting of the ban on (federal) coal leasing.

 

Coupled with decisive steps already taken by this administration, today’s move signals a much-needed change in policy direction. It shows that America’s rich energy resources are valued once again. It recognizes that we can be pro-energy and pro-environment.  In short, it provides opportunity.

 

The American Coal Council appreciates President Trump’s efforts to restore balance and fairness to the regulatory process, support job creation, strengthen energy independence, and lay the foundation for rebuilding and sustaining our nation’s vital coal industry.

Washington, D.C. (March 28, 2017) – ACC President Mike Siebers represented the organization at last week’s signing by President Trump of the executive order promoting energy independence and economic growth, effectively rolling back the Obama administration’s anti-coal regulatory regime. Siebers and other coal industry leaders were there at the invitation of the White House.

 

The signing ceremony was held at the Environmental Protection Agency and included remarks by Vice President Mike Pence, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke, and Secretary of Energy Rick Perry. Siebers is the senior vice president for sales and marketing at Peabody Energy.

 

ACC is carrying on the CTA tradition of hosting a reception at the Eastern Fuels Buyers Conference!

Please join us by the Admiral pool on Tuesday, May 2, 2017 at Disney's Yacht Club Resort from 5:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m. To register, click here.

Please join the Women’s Mining Coalition for the 25th annual Fly-In to Washington, D.C. on April 30-May 4, 2017.

This is a great opportunity for the members of WMC to introduce ourselves and our organization to members of Congress and their staff: who we are, what we do, and a chance to make new contacts. 

There is more information about the fly-in event on the WMC website - http://wmc-usa.org.  

Please contact Betsy Monseu, ACC CEO (bmonseu@americancoalcouncil.org) or Lynne Volpi, WMC Coordinator (lvolpi@frontiernet.net) with any questions about the fly-in or for information on WMC membership.

 

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Be sure to follow @AmericanCoal. Tweet "shout outs" and link to @AmericanCoal, along with coal-related hashtags: #coal, #climate, #CCS, #CCT, etc.

 

Please be sure to like and share ACC’s page and posts with your company and personal accounts.

If your company has tech or social media savvy employees, or employees with graphic design capabilities who are willing to donate time to help prepare infographics, social media posts, write articles, etc., please let the ACC know – info@americancoalcouncil.org. 

Each year we publish a Membership Directory with contact information for each of our member companies.

As a benefit of membership, we make this Directory available for ACC members to download (in PDF format). Click here to download the 2017 Membership Directory.

As the Membership Directory is a membership benefit, we ask that you please refrain from sharing this file with anyone outside of your own organization.

 

 

Click here to learn more about the benefits and opportunities associated with an annual ACC sponsorship.

Washington, D.C. – ACC CEO Betsy Monseu responded to a March 19 article in the Washington Post entitled "Coal in the Trump Age." The response was printed March 24. 

The Washington Post’s March 19, 2017 article "Coal in the Trump age: Industry has a pulse, but prospects for the return of jobs are weak" rushes to accentuate the negatives for an industry that is recovering from a multi-year trough. The coal sector has been devastated by lower demand and job loss in recent years due to the mounting impact of regulations pointed squarely at our industry. These regulations have significantly increased the cost of coal for electricity generation and industrial use, made it less competitive against other fuels, and resulted in the closure of a large number of coal power plants. 

 

While the regulations were piling on for coal, energy markets went through periods of extreme weakness due to a tepid economy and slow growth in the post-recession years. Oversupplied markets increased competition between coal and natural gas for electricity sector business. Job losses, bankruptcies, and restructurings have occurred in in oil and natural gas, just as they have in coal. 

 

Each of these energy commodities has been through business cycles before. The key difference with coal was the damage to the outlook for our industry caused by the real and perceived impacts of the extreme federal regulatory onslaught. President Trump has quickly set about the business of regulatory relief and reform, as he said he would. He was recently helped by Congress in eradicating one of the most punitive regulations for coal, the Stream Rule. This and other anticipated actions to reduce the Washington bureaucracy and the number of sweeping, excessive regulations will not instantly translate to more coal jobs, but they do begin to give back the opportunity for coal to compete and grow again. And that’s a great place to start after the years of a playing field purposely tilted away from coal. 

Platts  (March 8, 2017) Clearwater, FL –  Optimism pervaded the coal industry Wednesday as it gathered at the American Coal Council's Spring Coal Forum in Clearwater, Florida, as the early days of the Trump administration have brought regulatory relief for an industry struggling to regain its edge. Early signs of the Trump administration's focus on energy-related regulations have been positive for the industry, including a bill signed last month that eliminated the Stream Protection Rule, as well as executive orders on other energy-related issues, said Michael Nasi, a partner with Jackson Walker, a Dallas-based environmental law firm. Doing nothing in terms of federal intervention would be a major change for the industry compared with the Obama administration, which issued 57 federal implement plans over eight years. The FIPs are typically reserved for extraordinary circumstances under the Clean Air Act, which attempted to give more control to the states. "If all the president does is to stop doing [regulations] like this, he's going to do an amazing job," Nasi said.

 

By Meade Gruver (AP) GILLETTE, Wyo. –This hardscrabble Wyoming city of about 30,000 people proclaims itself the "Energy Capital of the Nation" on the mayor's blue blazer and even the parking ticket payment boxes.

Nearby are some of the world's largest open-pit mines, where dump trucks the size of houses haul out more than 40 percent of the coal produced in the U.S. The windy, wide-open landscape around Gillette also has substantial reserves of natural gas, oil and uranium.

So when President Donald Trump lifted a federal coal leasing moratorium and ordered a review of greenhouse gas regulations, the announcement electrified many workers here who depend on fossil fuels for their livelihood. After years of layoffs and corporate bankruptcies, they are optimistic that jobs and a better economy will soon return.

"It's not all rosy right now. But anytime you can see the future and know that the United States, you know, is working with you rather than against you, that alone is nice," Gillette Mayor Louise Carter-King said. She predicts the community will "come out of this bigger and better than ever" thanks to clean-coal technology and overseas exports.

By Luke Popovich, Opinion Contributor, The Hill (03/30/17) – President Trump this week signed the American Energy Independence Executive Order, an action being used by allies and critics alike to rally their bases, particularly when it comes to the re-examination of the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan. But while one side predicts environmental Armageddon, and the other cheers for an industry’s resurgence, there are significant truths that are being overlooked by each extreme. In considering the president’s regulatory reset, context is key. The Trump administration follows a frenzied regulatory attack on the economy that is without precedent. The Obama administration circumvented Congress and ignored voters’ demand for good jobs in order to practice what might be called public relations by regulation — a record number of cleverly-named regulations proclaiming "stream protection" and "clean power" that were designed to please activists and seduce the public but that rarely accomplished their stated purpose. 

 

By The Telegram (Mar 17, 2017) – The Kansas Supreme Court issued a decision on Friday to uphold a permit for the proposed $2.8 billion Sunflower coal plant in Holcomb. The court rejected the legal challenge from the Sierra Club, who challenged a 2014 Kansas Department of Health and Environment decision to grant an "addendum" to a 2010 permit. The permit said the plant would comply with federal air-quality standards. In a statement posted on Sunflower’s website, Sunflower said it is pleased that the Kansas Supreme Court approved the addendum to the Holcomb Expansion air permit. "Much work — by the Court, KDHE technical staff, and Sunflower staff — has gone into making certain that the HEP air permit meets all applicable state and federal requirements," the statement reads.

By Michael Bastach, Daily Caller (03/22/2017) – A public interest law firm sued the EPA for not turning over records regarding agency officials’ use of encrypted messaging applications. The Cause of Action Institute (CoA) filed suit in the District Court for the District of Columbia Tuesday after the EPA failed to turn over any records to the group within the time limits specified under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). "Career employees at the EPA appear to be using Signal to avoid transparency laws and vital oversight by the Executive Branch, Congress, and the public," Henry Kerner, CoA’s assistant vice president, said in a statement. "Communications on this encrypted application, however, which relate to agency business must still be preserved under the Federal Records Act and be made available for disclosure under the FOIA."

By Eliza Relman Business Insider (Mar. 16, 2017) – Senator James Inhofe, Republican of Oklahoma, claimed that the Environmental Protection Agency is releasing "propaganda" that is "brainwashing our kids," during a CNN interview on Thursday. "We want to deliver the services. We ought to make things clean," Inhofe said. "But we ought to take all this stuff that comes out of the EPA that's brainwashing our kids, that is propaganda, things that aren't true, allegations." Inhofe also defended President Donald Trump's proposed 31 percent funding cut to the EPA, which includes a $100 million reduction in funding for the agency's climate change programs. The EPA is facing, arguably, the deepest cuts of any federal agency under Trump's proposed budget, an outline of which was unveiled on Thursday. The budget allocates $5.7 billion for the EPA, down from $8.3 billion. 

The increasing reliance on natural gas for power generation, a need for natural gas storage capability and pipeline capacity, the aging state of existing natural gas infrastructure, safety and localized reliability concerns post-Aliso Canyon, and public opposition to infrastructure – what implications do these have for electricity costs and localized reliability? How might these natural gas issues impact the future for coal? 

Join us Theresa Pugh discusses an assessment of natural gas infrastructure readiness, and related policy and regulatory matters, including:

• Consequences of pipeline, compressor station, & possible localized storage service disruptions

• Implications of new safety and repair regulations 

• Outlook for reliable gas delivery to states lacking gas storage due to unsuitable geology 

• FERC – pipeline projects on hold until appointments are made 

• Local and regional reactions to gas generation, storage, and pipeline facilities

• Lessons from the Dakota Access Pipeline permitting process 

Register Today:  http://www.etouches.com/229381

There is no charge for members of the 

American Coal Council, but pre-registration is required.
Non-members may register for a fee of $50.

 

The American Coal Council and Naylor Association Solutions have partnered together to provide the American coal industry with a wide variety of print, digital, and online advertising opportunities.

Be sure to check out our Media Guide & Rate Card with all the information that you need to advertise in any of our publications.

Remember that ACC Members receive a 10 percent discount on all advertising rates listed in our Media Guide.

Please contact Betsy Monseu, ACC CEO at 202.756.4540 / bmonseu@americancoalcouncil.org or Anthony Land, Project Leader at Naylor Association Solutions 352.333.3454 / aland@naylor.com with any advertising questions.