Coal Company Cuts 500 Jobs in West Virginia, Blames Environmentalists

Pittsburgh-based CONSOL Energy announced this week that it plans to lay off 500 worker in West Virginia because of environmental regulation and litigation. The layoffs could come in early 2010 and will affect workers of the Little Eagle and Fola coal companies near Bickmore, W.Va.

"It is unfortunate that, at a time when reliable and affordable energy is so desperately needed to reinvigorate our economy, that the nation's energy industries are coming under repeated assault from nuisance lawsuits and appeals of environmental regulations," said CONSOL CEO Nicholas J. DeIuliis.

DeIuliis added that government regulation has put the long-term financial stability of Fola in question.

West Virginia has been at the center of a nearly decade-long battle over "mountaintop mining," a process that involves stripping coal from mountain peaks. Environmentalists have argued strenuously against the practice, which permanently changes the landscape and subjects area residents to flooding during rainy periods. Last year, the Washington Post reported that the District of Columbia's rising energy consumption had dramatically increased the demand for mountain coal.

After regulation slowed mountaintop removal in the late 1990s, the industry exploded again under the Bush administration, which routinely thwarted attempts to regulate the process. In 2001, the administration shifted the focus of a mining study that was poised to propose new regulations. Throughout the Bush years, companies were allowed to use semantic shifts and legal loopholes to ignore EPA limits regarding landfills and mining near streams.

Breaking with the Bush administration, incoming EPA director Lisa Jackson announced in March that the agency would review permits for new mining projects for their affects on streams and wetlands. Jackson said the increased oversight of the mountaintop mining industry would not affect existing mines and that she did not expect problems with most of the requests.

Contrary to CONSOL's complaints, however, receiving approval for mining projects has not grown substantially more difficult under the Obama administration. In February, a federal appeals court in Virginia ruled that the Army Corps of Engineers had the authority to dispense permits without waiting for more extensive EPA reviews. The environmental agency has urged the Corps of Engineers to hold permits until it can rule on the environmental impacts of mining projects, but it is not legally required to do so.