No Limits To Bush Admininistration Aid To Coal Industry - NYT

[hatrack]

WASHINGTON - "In 1997, as a top executive of a Utah mining company, David Lauriski proposed a measure that could allow some operators to let coal-dust levels rise substantially in mines. The plan went nowhere in the government. Last year, it found enthusiastic backing from one government official - Mr. Lauriski himself. Now head of the Mine Safety and Health Administration, he revived the proposal despite objections by union officials and health experts that it could put miners at greater risk of black-lung disease.

The reintroduction of the coal dust measure came after the federal agency had abandoned a series of Clinton-era safety proposals favored by coal miners while embracing others favored by mine owners. The agency's effort to rewrite coal regulations is part of a broader push by the Bush administration to help an industry that had been out of favor in Washington. As a candidate four years ago, Mr. Bush promised to expand energy supplies, in part by reviving coal's fortunes, particularly in Appalachia, where coal regions will also help decide how swing states like West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Ohio vote this year.

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On a rainy day in August 2000, with polls showing that he had a chance to carry West Virginia, Mr. Bush stopped in Charleston to rally support. Just before he left, he paused on the airport tarmac for a brief meeting that helped lay the seeds for the changes in environmental rules that favor the Appalachian coal industry. In a roped-off area behind the rental cars, Bill Raney, the president of the West Virginia Coal Association, an industry group, and Dick Kimbler, who headed a local chapter of the mine workers union, told Mr. Bush about layoffs at mountaintop mines. They said they also complained that a growing emphasis on environmental protection was delaying the approval of mining permits and eliminating jobs. Mr. Bush replied that the problems underscored the need to develop a national energy policy, the other men said. Less than two hours later, Donald L. Evans, then Mr. Bush's campaign chairman and now the commerce secretary, called Mr. Raney, who said they talked about making the permitting process less cumbersome. Mr. Raney and Mr. Kimbler then created the Balanced Energy Coalition, an industry group that persuaded many coal miners to back Mr. Bush. They also worked with the state's most prolific Republican fund-raiser, James H. Harless, a coal operator who collected $275,000 for Mr. Bush, five times what Mr. Gore raised in the entire state.

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Over the last two and a half years, the administration has changed one environmental regulation and announced plans to weaken another. And when officials released a new draft of the impact statement in May 2003, environmentalists were outraged. The report found that 1,200 miles of streams had been buried or damaged over the past two decades. But the Bush administration dropped the Clinton effort to limit the size of the valley fills. Instead, it called for more coordination among state and federal agencies to simplify the permitting process and minimize environmental harm. As a result, permits for mountaintop mines started flowing again last year, with 14 approved in West Virginia, up from just 3 in 2002. But just last month a court dealt a blow to the Bush administration's efforts, in a response to another suit by Mr. Lovett and other environmentalists. Judge Joseph R. Goodwin of United States District Court in West Virginia barred the Bush administration from using one of the main methods for expediting permit approvals that it had endorsed in the environmental review. The judge ordered the government to revoke the permits for 11 mines and to conduct more extensive environmental reviews before issuing any new permits."

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http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/09/politics/09coal.html?hp