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Thom Kay

AV's Legislative Director, Thom spends his days between Durham, NC and Washington D.C., knee deep in politics and legislation, working to persuade decision-makers to protect Appalachian communities from mountaintop removal and to invest in a new economy for the region. He is the least outdoorsy person at Appalachian Voices, and he's just fine with that.

EPA Revising Air Pollution Standards

Wednesday, July 25th, 2012 | Posted by Thom Kay | No Comments

Last Friday, EPA announced it will be considering revisions to the first-ever standards for controlling mercury, arsenic, selenium and other toxic pollutants from coal fired power plants, issued in December. These standards are the result of a years-long process, and while Appalachian Voices applauded them, many coal and utility companies vocally opposed them because coal plants would have to install new pollution controls.

Those controls would not only dramatically reduce the harmful toxics, they would also help control soot and other pollution. EPA estimates the standards would prevent as many as 11,000 premature deaths and 4,700 heart attacks a year, and reduce childhood asthma symptom and acute bronchitis, meaning fewer hospital visits and sick days. In other words, the rule is too important for the country to undergo weakening revisions.

The concern is that EPA, in reconsidering the standards, may weaken these critical health protections for five proposed coal fired power plants across the country, including Plant Washington in Georgia. The cynical approach to the news is to assume that this a political move or a concession to the coal and utilities industries. The optimistic approach is to assume that this is simply EPA making small alterations in order to create a sensible rule that can be implemented and enforced.

For now, we don’t know precisely what changes the EPA will make, but it is necessary that they enforce the Clean Air Act and refuse to compromise the health of the American people. Appalachian Voices will be closely following this process to ensure there is no backsliding.

Polls, Politics, and the Power of Your Voice

Monday, July 9th, 2012 | Posted by Thom Kay | 2 Comments

With the elections coming up in only a few months, public opinion polls are starting to become more common. There are bound to be thousands of horse race polls (Obama vs. Romney), but politicians are often more interested in issue polls, such as the one released by the Washington Post recently, which asked people if they thought the natural environment is better, worse, or about the same as it was 10 years ago.
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Only 10% believe the environment is better, while a majority, 58%, believe the environment is worse now than it was 10 years ago. Unfortunately, the 58% are quite correct, though the public at least being aware of the declining state of the environment should be viewed as a good thing.

The next question respondents were asked to answer was “thinking ahead to 10 or so years from now, do you think the natural environment will be better, worse, or about the same?”

A plurality of those polled, 40%, believe that the environment will be worse, while only 19% believe it will be better. That response is troubling. (more…)

Legislation Addressing Health Impacts of Mountaintop Removal Introduced in Congress

Tuesday, June 19th, 2012 | Posted by Thom Kay | No Comments

Today, Representatives Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), Louise Slaughter (D-NY), and 11 Democratic cosponsors are introducing the Appalachian Community Health Emergency Act into the 112th Congress. The bill seeks to help end mountaintop removal mining in Appalachia by highlighting the health impacts associated with the practice.

We applaud this effort to bring the daily tragedy that is mountaintop removal coal mining in Appalachia to the attention of the American people and their Representatives in the U.S. Congress. We are also grateful for the continued leadership demonstrated by Reps. Kucinich and Slaughter, both cosponsors of the Clean Water Protection Act (H.R.1375), and longtime champions of Appalachia.

Over the Line

Wednesday, April 4th, 2012 | Posted by Thom Kay | No Comments

A lot has been made of EPA’s proposed greenhouse gas rules, but a quotation from Cecil Roberts, President of the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) will likely grab the most headlines.

The Navy SEALs shot Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan and Lisa Jackson shot us in Washington. – Cecil Roberts, 4/3/12

Sure, it’s pretty offensive, but let’s just focus on how overblown and wrong the statement is.

First of all, the proposed rule would only apply to future coal fired power plants that have not broken ground for construction within the next 12 months. In other words, all of the 1,226 coal fired power plants across the country will have to do exactly nothing under the proposed rule. They will continue to burn the same amount of coal as they would without the rule.

We’ve heard an uproar from the UMWA but there’s a reason environmental groups offered such tame applause. In practice, this rule would not change all that much. According to the proposal, EPA anticipates the rule “will result in negligible changes in GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions over the analysis period (2020).” Hardly worth popping the champagne over. Keep in mind that the United Nations International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) calls for a 25%-40% reduction of GHGs below 1990 levels by 2020 in order to avoid catastrophic impacts from climate change.

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Senator Manchin Should Listen to Himself

Tuesday, March 13th, 2012 | Posted by Thom Kay | 1 Comment

It’s rare to get this upset over someone making a valid statement, but the other day Sen. Manchin (D-WV) said something that I completely agree with, and it’s driving me nuts. When discussing the future of coal in a hearing with Department ofEnergy Secretary Steven Chu, he stated the following:

“It doesn’t make any sense at all that we can’t do it better, cleaner, and work together.”

Coal is inherently dirty, and the extraction process carries safety and environmental risks that cannot be entirely avoided. But we can do it better and cleaner, and if the Senator wants to include a feel-good political platitude, then sure, we can even “work together.”

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Bad Bill of the Week

Tuesday, February 21st, 2012 | Posted by Thom Kay | 4 Comments

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) has just introduced a bill that has the sole purpose of making it easier for coal companies to pollute water. S.2122, the “Defense of Environment and Property Act” neither defends the environment nor private property.

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While the Senator makes the argument that the legislation protects the right of “landowners to do what they please with their own private property,” he really means that coal companies can do whatever they want at a mine site without any consideration for the effects it will have on the people who live near that site.

Under his bill, the Clean Water Act would no longer apply to ephemeral or intermittent streams, like the ones formed after it rains. As we’ve seen repeatedly, filling those streams with spoil leads to severe flooding, among other problems. That flooding destroys homes downstream. Those homes are also private property, but for some reason, in Sen. Paul’s mind, they do not deserve the same sorts of protections given to property owned by coal companies.

The Senator claims that he is bringing “common sense to federal water policy.” In what world does this pass for common sense? The bill goes on to make it nearly impossible for the EPA or Army Corps of Engineers (whom Sen. Paul has for some reason chosen to demonize as well) to limit coal mining pollution. I can’t decide if the bill name “Defense of Environment and Property Act” is intentionally misleading or if they are just being sarcastic.

Dangerous Coal Ash Ponds Extremely Common

Tuesday, November 1st, 2011 | Posted by Thom Kay | No Comments

There should be zero “significant” hazard coal ash ponds in the United States. The catastrophic collapse of TVA’s Kingston coal ash pond should be a one-time event. Congress should be fighting to protect citizens from another spill.

Unfortunately, there are 181 “significant” hazard coal ash ponds, according to EPA’s latest assessment of coal combustion waste impoundments across the country. A “significant” hazard coal ash pond, based on criteria from the National Inventory of Dams (NID), “can cause economic loss, environmental damage, disruption of lifeline facilities, or impact other concerns.” In 2009, the EPA reported only 60 such ash ponds. What’s worse is that there are 47 “high” hazard coal ash ponds, and the failure of any one of them would likely lead to loss of human life.

In other words, there is no reason to believe that the spill in Kingston, Tennessee in 2008, which released a billion gallons of toxic coal sludge over 300 acres of land, was a one-time event. There are no federal regulations for coal ash ponds, just a patchwork of weak and often unenforced state regulations.

The EPA is trying to do something about this, but people like Rep. David McKinley (R-WV) have fought to stop them. He sponsored a bill that would prohibit EPA from creating federally enforceable guidelines for safer coal ash storage. The bill passed the House and is on the way to the Senate, where Appalachian Voices is working with allies to defeat it.

The pro-coal bill is being pushed by big utilities and coal companies, touting a false jobs argument while protecting their profits at the expense of the public. In truth, they like coal ash ponds because they are cheap ways to dispose of ash and do not create jobs they have to pay for.

Though I suppose that’s not always the case: the Kingston spill has cost $1 Billion, and, over two years later, still employs 450 people six days a week to clean it up. So for those of you at home keeping count, that’s 550 workers in Tennessee shoveling coal out of the ground, and 450 workers scooping toxic coal sludge off the ground.

An Intentional Government Oversight

Thursday, September 15th, 2011 | Posted by Thom Kay | 1 Comment

Today, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is working hard to protect your right to dirty water. Or maybe it’s the right of coal companies to blow up mountains anywhere, anytime, and poison your water without paying the consequences. Whatever they want to call it, the fallacy of “regulation kills jobs in Appalachia” is once again being touted on Capitol Hill by the coal industry, and some in Congress are echoing them in the recent staff report Broken Government: How the Administrative State has Broken President Obama’s Promise of Regulatory Reform.

While the same idea that the EPA acting to protect public health from the effects of mountaintop removal coal mining is bad for business is relayed throughout the report, this number is new to me:

“… the EPA’s permitorium has a direct and indirect impact on over 162,000 jobs. “

Now, let’s accept for a moment that “permitorium” is a word (though it is most certainly not). The Environmental Protection Agency, as a governmental agency, is required to obey and uphold the law. If a proposed mountaintop removal coal mine does not meet the requirements of the Clean Water Act, the EPA cannot simply give it the green light on a permit. If your business plan is to dump toxic waste into headwater streams that feed into people’s drinking water, why should they allow you to mine?

Before getting caught up in the false dichotomy of “jobs vs. the environment,” it should be noted that the report’s numbers are bogus, strip mining does not support job growth, and stopping mountaintop removal coal mines is actually good for the economies of Appalachian communities.

First of all, let’s be clear: the principle reason mining companies use the mountaintop removal method to mine coal is to eliminate the need for jobs. Underground mining requires more miners. In order to increase profit margins by eliminating costs (read: employees), they use machines and explosives to replace people. Since adopting the practice of mountaintop removal, coal production has increased, and mining jobs have plummeted. Good for mining executives, bad for miners.

This graph demonstrates the decades long trend in West Virginia, where coal mining jobs are now about a quarter of what they once were despite the increase in coal mined.

Note that in recent years as mountaintop removal permits are harder to get and more of the coal is mined underground, the number of jobs has begun to increase – a result that can be directly attributed to the EPA’s enforcement of the Clean Water Act.

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