Amid climate-related pledges, speakers at UN summit admit world has far to go
Amid dozens of government and private sector announcements on new climate-change-related targets and financing, speakers at the United Nations Climate Action Summit in New York City acknowledged far more needs to be done to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement on climate change. U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres in opening remarks acknowledged a significant amount of money will be needed to curb global emissions.
US DOE funding $56.5M for research projects supporting coal competitiveness
The U.S. Department of Energy is backing 32 projects with a total of $56.5 million in federal funding for cost-shared research and development projects for advanced coal technologies and research under six separate funding opportunity announcements. The agency spread the awards over a range of categories including carbon capture, utilization and storage; rare earth element recovery; coal-to-products; crosscutting coal R&D; steam turbine efficiency; and advanced materials. The awards further the administration's commitment to strengthening clean coal technology, the DOE said in a Sept. 20 news release.
House Natural Resources subcommittee considers bill to end coal self-bonding
Federal lawmakers discussed a bill that would eliminate the practice of self-bonding for coal companies during a subcommittee hearing amid debates over oil and gas regulations. U.S. Rep. Matt Cartwright, D-Pa., recently introduced the Coal Cleanup Taxpayer Protection Act, which would prevent coal companies from self-bonding, a practice of using an entity's net worth rather than a bond to pay for coal mine reclamation obligations. The bill will ensure coal companies restore land once mining is complete, rather than letting those costs fall to taxpayers, and will tighten rules on other types of bonding, according to a Sept. 20 release.
Court sides with union over coal producer in disputed agreement violation
A federal district court denied a coal producer's motion for summary judgment, ruling in favor of a coal miners' union in a case determining what constituted "construction" at a mine site. The litigation stems from a dispute that began on Feb. 5, 2018, when The Harrison County Coal Co. hired contractors to install a new belt drive at the Harrison County mine, an underground coal mine in West Virginia currently controlled by Murray Energy Corp., according to a Sept. 18 filing with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia. The company has a collective bargaining agreement with union members, which is regulated under the 2016 National Bituminous Coal Wage Agreement, which "establishes work jurisdiction of union-represented employees and provides restrictions on plaintiff's ability to contract out this work."
Mont., Wyo. regulators urge FERC to expedite grid resilience proceeding
Utility commissioners in Montana and Wyoming are urging the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to act on a grid resilience proceeding the agency initiated 20 months ago when it unanimously rejected a proposal designed to prop up at-risk coal-fired and nuclear units. In rejecting a U.S. Department of Energy proposal that would have effectively subsidized those uneconomic plants, five members of the commission voted in January 2018 to open a separate docket (FERC docket AD18-7) examining the resiliency of the nation's bulk power system. But FERC has not displayed outward signs of progress in that proceeding since it moved in March 2018 to extend the deadline for stakeholders to weigh in, Montana and Wyoming regulators noted in separate letters posted online Sept. 18 and Sept. 19, respectively.
Wheeler: US EPA to revise science transparency rule proposal in early 2020
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency intends to issue a revised version of its proposed "Strengthening Transparency in Regulatory Science" rule in early 2020 instead of finalizing the original proposal by the end of the year as originally planned, EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler told a congressional oversight hearing. During his first appearance before the U.S. House of Representatives' Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, Wheeler announced on Sept. 19 that his agency is planning on issuing a "supplement" to the proposed regulatory science transparency rule. Unveiled in April 2018 by Wheeler's predecessor, Scott Pruitt, the proposal aimed to ensure the science used by the federal agency to develop environmental regulations, including data or models used within a scientific study, is publicly available in a way that allows for independent verification.
