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BLUEFIELD — The leader of the state’s biggest coal industry advocacy group expressed optimism concerning developments in the U.S. Senate related to efforts to pass climate change legislation this year.
Bill Raney, president of the West Virginia Coal Association, reacted Friday to reports out of Washington that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has withdrawn the Senate’s present carbon reduction legislation, with the intention of drafting a new plan aimed at addressing the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, energy efficient buildings and the use of natural gas in big trucks.
“I think it’s a very positive development for the people of West Virginia, but I think we have to be very, very cautious,” Raney said. “With the way things work in Washington, cap-and-trade legislation could be attached as a rider to another bill and move on through. We need to be so very, very cautious.”
According to published reports, Reid told reporters about the plan to drop cap and trade and concentrate on legislation addressing the BP oil spill after a Democratic Party caucus on Thursday.
“You can’t call it cap and trade,” Raney said. “It’s really a carbon tax bill that would really impact the people of West Virginia. It’s temporarily good, but we need to remain vigilant and do the things we need to do to keep it from passing in another way.
“I think it’s good that the Senate can’t get 60 votes to bring it out for a vote, but that doesn’t mean we’ve heard the end of it,” Raney said.
In a news release issued Friday, Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., said, “I am continuing to push hard for my bill to suspend EPA action for two years so that Congress, not federal regulators, can set national energy policy. I have been arguing for months that more work and new solutions are needed for tackling climate change — the cap-and-trade proposals introduced in the last year don’t work for West Virginia.”
Rockefeller stated further the Senate’s decision to focus on the oil spill and non-controversial energy efficiency initiatives “is a sound idea with bipartisan support. But in the meantime, the EPA could do real harm to our economy if allowed to go forward precipitously, without additional direction from Congress. We also can’t wait to continue advancing clean coal technologies, like carbon capture and storage. That’s why both my EPA and CCS bills are such a high priority.”
The House narrowly passed a climate change bill in June 2009, and bill supporters had hoped the Senate would act on similar legislation prior to its August recess.
— Bill Archer is a member of the Bluefield Daily Telegraph editorial staff.
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