FACES of Coal

A Message From FACES of Coal
As 2009 draws to a close, we would like to thank you for your support of FACES of Coal and your efforts to ensure that lawmakers and the American people understand that coal energizes our nation and fuels our economy.

Since we launched our campaign in August,

• 40,000 individuals have registered as members of FACES of Coal;
• 104 organizations, including chambers of commerce, fiscal courts, manufacturers and retailers, support our coalition; and
• 1,349 lawmakers representing 44 states have received 30,000 e-mails and letters in support of coal.

Washington bureaucrats have still taken no action on dozens of mining permits that have been arbitrarily stalled. Our legislators have still not delivered the balanced energy and economic policy we need and deserve.

The future of coal mining in America remains uncertain, and we need you to continue writing and calling your elected representatives (you can do so now by clicking the link below). Remind them our holiday lights are shining bright because of the affordable electricity generated by coal.

And we can provide good food and gifts to our families and friends in our warm homes, because of the good jobs sustained by coal.

Thank you for your efforts to protect our jobs and secure our future.

We wish you and yours a happy holiday season and a prosperous New Year.

Federation for American Coal, Energy and Security(FACES of Coal)

Click the link below to log in and send your message:

http://www.votervoice.net/link/target/faces39210323.aspx

VA-05 Needs A New Representative

Cap and Trade-A Federal Leviathan

Not Everyone Won the Cap and Trade Lobbying Battle

The cap and trade bill introduced by Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Edward Markey (D-MA) and passed in the House is 1,427 pages and includes much more than a cap and trade system to reduce carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions. We’ve been detailing these economically harmful provisions in our cap and trade calamities, but Kathleen Hartnett White at the Texas Public Policy Foundation provides a tremendous synopsis of the entire bill and asks many tough questions in her policy paper, A Federal Leviathan: The American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009.

One particularly revealing part of the paper is the graph on the bottom of page three. Approximately 2,340 energy lobbyists worked on the cap-and-trade bill to do what President Obama said we shouldn’t – hand out allowances costs to utilities and other industries direct revenue to them. Opposition to this huge energy tax bill wheeling, dealing and arm-twisting to eke out the narrowest of majorities. They promised generous handouts for various industries and special interests but not everyone came out winners. The blue indicates the emissions by industry and the red indicates the allowances allocated by the government.

As shown by the graph, the refining and petroleum products industry, responsible for much of the carbon emissions from energy, receive the very little allowance allocations. White writes,

“Under the aggressive carbon caps, many U.S. industries could not compete with foreign products manufactured in countries without binding carbon limits. And increased import of goods manufactured elsewhere without carbon limits would
increase global carbon emissions. To address this “carbon leakage,” the bill provides for “carbon emission allowance rebates” to industries which meet specified levels of “trade intensity” or “energy intensity.” Petroleum refining, oddly, is excluded from those eligible.”

The other loser is, of course, me and you. The disguised energy tax will cost a family of four an additional $3,000 per year. When all the tax impacts have been added up, we find that the average per-family-of-four costs rise by almost $3,000 per year. In the year 2035 alone, the tax impact is $4,600. And if you add up the costs per family for the whole energy tax aggregated from 2012 to 2035, the years in which we modeled the bill, it’s about $71,500.

Giving away allowances are not an exception to the “no free lunches” adage. Giving away allowances does not lower the costs of cap and trade; it merely shifts the costs around.

Waxman-Markey is Robin Hood in reverse: it takes a lot of money from regular Americans and funnels it to Washington bureaucrats and the corporations with the best lobbyists.

Marines Doing Good Work

The hoopla and huge sighs of relief brought on by Senator John SIDNEY McCain's pick of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate shouldn't keep us from remembering that we still have Marines in Iraq doing good things.The 1st Marine RCT-1 is in Fallujah and turning on the power. See pics and read more here.

FALLUJAH, Iraq – Nearly 10,000 Fallujah homes were restored with electricity access thanks to Marines working closely with the Fallujah City Council to deliver 35 new generators throughout the city.

Civil Affairs Team 2, 2nd Battalion, 11th Marine Regiment, in direct support of 3rd Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment, along with Sheik Hamid Ahmad Hashim al-Alwani, chairman of the FCC, announced the delivery of the 32nd generator during an Iraqi press briefing Aug. 27 at a site in the city where one of the generators has been producing power for the last three months.

“From the time we arrived in January, there was a local demand for generators throughout the city,” said Chief Warrant Officer 2 Byron Yoshida, team leader, Civil Affairs Team 2. “Initially, the project was sub-divided by precincts and eventually it became a city-wide project of providing the 35 generators.”

In early March, an informal Iraqi committee was formed and locations for the generators were proposed to Marines with Team 2. Since then, Team 2 has worked closely with contractors to deliver the units. Each generator will provide anywhere from 100 to 300 homes with electricity within a 300 meter radius. Yoshida said he anticipates having all of the generators delivered in time for the end of Ramadan celebrations, which occur Oct. 1.

While some neighborhoods receive power from privately-owned generators, the new units are available to all residents for minimal fees and are managed by trained Iraqi operators.

“We trained and certified operators who are responsible for keeping residents connected and keeping the generator operating using preventive maintenance,” Yoshida said. “The operators are obligated to ensuring the generators provide a minimum of seven hours of power on a daily basis to offset the shortage of national power.”

Sheik Hamid said he is grateful the generators arrived in time for the hotter portion of the summer and for Ramadan, but noted they are a short-term fix for a larger
problem. The city had previously used hydroelectric power produced by the
Haditha Dam, which has not been in full operation for several years due to neglect by the Saddam regime.