Coal is also a very prickly political and economic issue. But if we really do want to stop massive flooding, fires and storms, we're going to have to do something about it. From Grist's David Roberts:

Yesterday, Jessnoted a new paper in the American Economic Review: “Environmental Accounting for Pollution in the United States Economy.” Brad Johnson has a longer summary here. I want to emphasize the paper’s conclusions and make a few related points. But mostly I want to beg everyone:spread this around. Coal’s net economic effects on the U.S. are poorly understood, to say the least, and this paper’s findings are stunning.

Once you strip away the econ jargon, the paper finds that, on the margin, electricity from coal imposes more damages on the U.S. economy than the electricity is worth. That’s right: The next coal-fired power plant is a net value-subtraction. A parasite, you might say, that will enrich a few executives and shareholders at the public’s expense.

If you’re of a wonky bent, it’s worth digging in. The authors try to establish a framework for integrating air-pollution costs into national accounts — that is, a systematic way of accounting for those “externalities” you’re always hearing about — and come up with something called gross external damages (GED). They calculate GED for several common industries and find that not only coal power, but “solid waste combustion, sewage treatment, stone quarrying, [and] marinas” have air-pollution externalities that exceed their total value added.

But coal power is a parasite in a class by itself, with a GED equal to the combined totals of its three closest competitors. In fact, coal plants “are responsible for more than one-fourth of GED from the entire U.S. economy” — roughly $53 billion in damages a year.

Even in West Virginia, where they're dominated by the coal industry, they're starting to get it:

Half-hysterical politicians and energy moguls accuse the Obama White House of waging a "war on coal" -- but Sen. Jay Rockefeller bravely pointed out that charge isn't true.

In a landmark Senate speech on West Virginia Day, he said the industry should "face reality": Coal is fading because easy-to-reach seams are being depleted, and because the Marcellus gas boom provides cheaper fuel. It's simple economics, dog-eat-dog laws of the marketplace. Federal EPA rules against coal pollution and mountain ravages -- blamed endlessly by some politicians and coal executives -- are merely a small factor in the decline of "black gold."

Rockefeller's stand took courage, because the Mountain State remains heavily dominated by the once-supreme industry. "The shift to a lower-carbon economy is not going away," he said bluntly -- adding that it's a "terrible disservice" to deceive West Virginia mining families into thinking the trend will vanish.

Sometimes we think the hyped-up corporate rage at Obama is mostly a Republican political attempt to taint the Democratic president.

The American Bridge 21st Century PAC has launched a new video showing the hypocrisy of Mitt Romney's current stances on energy and oil exploration. While Romney's campaign web site is somewhat vague on energy, using phrases like "Open America’s energy reserves for development," in interviews he has been more candid:

“Well, the best thing we can do to get the price of gas to be more moderate and not have to be dependent upon the cartel is drill in the gulf, drill in the outer continent shelf, drill in ANWR, drill in North Dakota, South Dakota, drill in Oklahoma, and Texas.” [Fox and Friends, 3/16/12]

But in his book released not even a year earlier, Romney was much more accurate in his assessment of the value of oil exploration:

“We consume roughly 24 percent of the world’s oil but possess only 2.4 percent of the world’s oil reserves. Even if we were to begin to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and on the continental shelf, it wouldn’t be enough to appreciably have an impact on our dependence on other nations for oil. And if we were to open the domestic oil spigot too wide and drain our last fields, we would risk leaving America even more vulnerable twenty-five years from now than it is today. But there should be no objection to preparing the energy infrastructure to tap known reserves and to discover more reserves: This is a vitally important insurance policy against future energy shocks or threats to national security. And it is always possible that new, very large discoveries could surprise us.” [No Apology, 2011, Pg. 247]

In addition to that massive short-term flip-flop, Romney's web site is loaded with false claims:

The Obama administration’s energy policy has been simply incoherent. For instance, it has blocked off-shore drilling in U.S. waters while applauding increased drilling off the coast of Brazil. Similarly, it has blocked construction of a pipeline that would bring Canadian oil to the United States, knowing full well that the result would be Canadian oil flowing to China instead. And it has pursued numerous regulations that would drive up energy prices while destroying millions of jobs.

As the Obama administration wages war against oil and coal, it has been spending billions of dollars on alternative energy forms and touting its creation of “green” jobs. But it seems to be operating more on faith than on fact-based economic calculation. The “green” technologies are typically far too expensive to compete in the marketplace, and studies have shown that for every “green” job created there are actually more jobs destroyed. Unsurprisingly, this costly government investment has failed to create an economic boom.

The first claim is that Obama blocked off-shore drilling in U.S. waters. The reality is that he temporarily blocked Gulf drilling after the BP oil spill, but has consistently championed expanded drilling in other circumstances:

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Now that Don Blankenship is out as head of Massey Energy and the company faces serious charges with regard to its safety record and last year's explosion, company executives have decided it's a good time to have the company sold to a company with better government...um..relations.

So Massey Energy will become part of Alpha Natural Resources, in a deal that will allow Massey to benefit from Alpha's better safety record while giving Alpha a hard lock on the coal mining business.

Massey Energy, the embattled coal mine operator, agreed on Saturday to sell itself for about $7.1 billion in cash and stock in a deal that will create a new giant in coal production — and could help Massey shed legal burdens arising from a marred safety record that includes the explosion last year at the Upper Big Branch mine in West Virginia.

Under the terms of the deal, Alpha Natural Resources will pay 1.025 of its own shares and $10 in cash, for a total of $69.33 as of Friday’s market close, for each Massey share. That represents a 21 percent premium to Massey’s Friday closing price of $57.23.

The deal will unite two of the biggest American producers of coal, with more than 110 mines and about five billion tons of combined reserves throughout the Appalachian region, the Midwest and Wyoming. It will also bolster Alpha’s presence in the growing market for metallurgical coal, which is used to make steel. Massey has enormous reserves of metallurgical coal, and it has increased its exports to countries like India and Brazil, where strong demand has driven up global prices for the material.

Massey agreed to the deal today, after stomping their corporate feet and singing "lalalalala" with their fingers in their ears to the government's findings that the cause of last year's blast was a combination of broken equipment, poorly maintained safety devices, and coal dust.

Massey Energy Co. on Friday rejected nearly every part of the federal government's theory on what caused the deadly explosion at its Upper Big Branch mine in West Virginia last spring, killing 29 men.

The Richmond-based coal company doesn't think that worn shearer bits, broken water sprayers or an excessive buildup of coal dust contributed to the blast, Vice President and General Counsel Shane Harvey said.

Instead, Massey continues to argue that there was a sudden inundation of natural gases from a floor crack that overwhelmed what it insists were good airflow and other controls that should have contained the blast.

The Mine Safety and Health Administration has played down the significance of the crack, arguing that it was not venting methane and that any explosion is preventable with proper safeguards. It presented preliminary findings from its continuing investigation last week, saying Massey records and evidence from inside the mine point to poor maintenance as the cause of the blast.

Timing is everything.

Massey faces stiffening regulatory oversight, as well as several state and federal investigations into its operations. On Friday, the company contested the findings of a federal regulator’s inquiry into the Upper Big Branch incident, the worst mining accident in 40 years. A company executive rejected claims that the explosion arose from faulty equipment and excessive levels of coal dust.

Those legal troubles have weighed on Massey: After the Upper Big Branch explosion, the company tallied about $150 million in related expenses, and for for the 12 months ended Sept. 30, it reported $2.9 billion in net revenue but a $72.2 million loss.

Mr. Crutchfield said that he planned to draw on his company’s cleaner safety and environmental record to help resolve Massey’s legal issues, which he conceded would take time.

Which translated means this: Alpha knows someone who knows someone who will give them a break if they promise to clean up their act. And it only cost them a few billion dollars.

I guess this means "clean coal" plants are next?

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama will announce on Tuesday plans for the government to help finance the construction of two nuclear reactors -- the first in nearly 30 years, a top US official said.

Obama, who has advocated reducing foreign energy dependency and cutting back on greenhouse gases, will use a 2005 law that authorizes the Energy Department to guarantee loans to projects that help reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Obama "has long believed that nuclear power should be part of our energy mix," a senior administration told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The 18.5 billion dollars in existing loan guarantee authority will be used to help finance the construction and operation of two new nuclear reactors at a Southern Company plant in Burke, Georgia.

Here's the thing: Nuclear power plants take a while to earn back investors' money, and until then, they often operate at a loss. They cost so much money to run, they won't close down the Vermont Yankee plant to discover the source of a radioactive substance that's leaking into the Connecticut River.

But hey, who doesn't love radioactive drinking water?

And because nuclear power plants are privately owned, what's to stop holding companies from moving the ownership into riskier corporate entities they could use to file bankruptcy, allowing them to walk away without expensive liabilities in the event of a nuclear accident? Nothing, really.

If anything in this country should be nationalized, it should be high-risk power plants. It's just common sense that for-profit companies will always put profit over safety.

And remember, we can't assume there'll always be a Democratic administration to inspect nuclear power.

And for the 8-hour workday, thank the labor movement:

In the United States, Philadelphia carpenters went on strike in 1791 for the ten-hour day. By the 1830s, this had become a general demand. In 1835, workers in Philadelphia organized a general strike, led by Irish coal heavers. Their banners read, From 6 to 6, ten hours work and two hours for meals. Labor movement publications called for an eight-hour day as early as 1836. Boston ship carpenters, although not unionized, achieved an eight-hour day in 1842.

In 1864, the eight-hour day quickly became a central demand of the Chicago labor movement. The Illinois legislature passed a law in early 1867 granting an eight-hour day but had so many loopholes that it was largely ineffective. A city-wide strike that began on May 1, 1867 shut down the city's economy for a week before collapsing. In 1868, Congress passed an eight-hour law for federal employees, which was also of limited effectiveness.

In August 1866 the National Labor Union at Baltimore passed a resolution that said, "The first and great necessity of the present to free labour of this country from capitalist slavery, is the passing of a law by which eight hours shall be the normal working day in all States of the American Union. We are resolved to put forth all our strength until this glorious result is achieved."

Gee. No wonder the Republicans hate labor!

But we still have a way to go:

The United States is the only advanced economy that does not guarantee its workers any paid vacation time, according to a report by the Center for Economic and Policy Research. As a result, 1 in 4 private-sector workers in the U.S. do not receive any paid vacation or paid holidays.

The report, No-Vacation Nation, by Rebecca Ray and John Schmitt, finds that European workers are legally guaranteed at least 20 paid vacation days per year, with 25 and even 30 or more days common in some countries.

The gap between paid time off in the United States and the rest of the world is even larger when legal holidays are included. The United States does not guarantee any paid holidays, but most rich countries provide between 5 and 13 per year, in addition to paid vacation days.

“Relying on businesses to voluntarily provide paid leave just hasn't worked,” said John Schmitt, senior economist and co-author of the report. “It's a national embarrassment that 28 million Americans don't get any paid vacation or paid holidays.”

Remember, this is not the time to be grateful for what little you have. This is the time to fight.

So Verizon Wireless is one of sponsors of the Friends of America Rally this Labor Day weekend, an anti-environment, pro-coal event. Most of the other sponsors are in the coal industry and there is even a link to the National Mining Association’s anti-Waxman-Markey petition on the home page.

Credo Action wanted to know why Verizon would sponsor such a reactionary event with such polarizing figures--especially ones that have gone out of their way to foment violence. From their email:

Before we launched our campaign, CREDO Action reached out to Verizon Wireless to confirm its sponsorship of the pro-coal "Friends of America" rally. Becky Bond, our Political Director, then sent a cordial follow-up to give Verizon Wireless a heads-up that our campaign had launched. Verizon replied as follows:

"This is how our response is going over with the activists. Becky once lived in a tree for a while. At least now I know where the emails are coming from."

— James Gerace, VP of Corporate Communications at Verizon Wireless

You got that?

If you don't think that Verizon Wireless should support global warming deniers and practitioners of mountaintop removal mining, then Verizon Wireless thinks it's okay to dismiss your concerns because you must have "lived in a tree for a while."

If they're going to try to mock us for opposing right wing demagoguery, then we'll just have to make more noise.

So please take a minute to ask your friends and family to join this campaign, especially if they are Verizon Wireless customers.

Let's remember how this campaign started. Verizon Wireless apparently sees nothing wrong with co-sponsoring a rally put on by Massey Energy, the biggest violator of the Clean Water Act in history; sees nothing wrong with giving a platform to people who deny global warming; sees nothing wrong with giving the emcee microphone to Ted Nugent who famously said:

Obama, he's a piece of sh — . I told him to suck on my machine gun...Hey Hillary [Clinton] you might want to ride one of these [machine guns] into the sunset, you worthless b — ch.

Apparently these are the values and sentiments Verizon Wireless feels comfortable associating itself with. You can violate the law, pillage the Earth and publicly insult Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in the most vulgar way. Verizon Wireless is fine with that. But when we express common sense concerns about environmental stewardship, Verizon Wireless thinks we're tree-hugging nuts.

You know you want to give Verizon a piece of your mind. Remember, be polite. Show more class than they have.

While the corporate media is praising Obama's announcement yesterday to more stringently monitor mountaintop mining, those involved in fighting the massive pollution that results from the practice say it's nowhere near enough. One group's attorney called it "rearranging the bureaucratic deck chairs." (Remember how Obama kept talking about "clean coal"? This is what it looks like, folks: powerful poison dumped into people's lives.)

Friday morning, this terrible news:

Just how bad has the coal ash situation gotten in the United States? So bad that the Department of Homeland Security has told Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) that her committee can't publicly disclose the location of coal ash dumps across the country.

The pollution is so toxic, so dangerous, that an enemy of the United States -- or a storm or some other disrupting event -- could easily cause them to spill out and lay waste to any area nearby.

And yet, for some reason, it's perfectly fine when mining companies do it! Hey, how about that "clean coal"?

There are 44 sites deemed by the Environmental Protection Agency to be high hazard, but Boxer said she isn't allowed to talk about them other than to senators in the states affected. "There is a huge muzzle on me and my staff," she said.

In other words, this is a very urgent problem. Activists say all Obama has to do is enforce the Clean Water Act that already exists.

If the Obama administration wants to protect the people and mountains of Appalachia, it needs to end the destructive practice of mountaintop mining, not settle for promises of stricter scrutiny of the mining permits, advocates say.

[...] The White House announced what it described as an “unprecedented” agreement among the Environmental Protection Agency, the Army Corps of Engineers and the Interior Department to better coordinate and tighten the agencies’ oversight of mountaintop mining and to review the mining existing laws.

In a memorandum of understanding, the agencies promised to:

• Require more stringent environmental reviews for future mountaintop mining permits, including using the Clean Water Act to reduce contamination in streams and watersheds;

• Propose a rule change to stop allowing a type of nationwide permit that doesn’t require site-specific reviews for mining operations to dump the mineral-laden debris of former mountaintops into streams;

• Strengthen oversight of state agencies, both in their permitting and enforcement;

• And, if the U.S. District Court vacates the Bush administration’s 2008 Stream Buffer Zone Rule as requested, return to the 1983 rules restoring the 100-foot buffer zone around streams for mining waste.

These are all steps in the right direction, but they aren’t enough, says Willa Mays, Executive Director of Appalachian Voices:

"Their priorities do not take into account that mountains are being blown up today, and until mountaintop removal coal mining is ended, residents will continue to suffer from high disease rates, floods, and poisoned water supplies directly attributable to this mining practice."

Advocates across Appalachia echoed her concern.

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The America's Future Now gathering in D.C. just wrapped up today. I haven't been able to post a lot about the panels and talks that went on over the past three days, but probably the most interesting speech I heard came from Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon, talking about the energy bill working its way through Congress.

Adam Siegel at GetEnergySmartNow has a good post up about with excerpts:

If I’d been here a year ago, I would have talked to you about three things: The need to transform energy economy, create jobs, and tackle global warming. ... About the third, during the campaign, I spoke it about every single night. People asked me why, as it was 21st on people’s concerns. I responded: it should be first on everyone’s agenda and the only way it will be is if we talk about it.

... If I am going to simplify the issue, we have to quit taking geologic carbon and turning it into atmospheric carbon.

... In the past, people have described the Senate as the place where a good House bill goes to die. ... We need to change that. We need to reestablish the Senate as a place where an okay bill goes to get vastly improved.

... There is the possibility that we will end up with a framework that is ineffective, that has offsets, that doesn’t have a firm cap. ... Or, we could end up with something that could really transform our use of energy. Obviously, we’re going to have to work real hard to get from the former to the latter.

The whole session was fascinating -- including the speech by Sierra Club president Carl Pope, who talked at length about how the federal government's fickle ways on energy have been killing our ability to create green jobs. (You can watch it all here.) The classic case of this involves the reality that even though wind turbine transformers require elements mined from American soil, China is the world's leading manufacturer of them.

And if you don't believe that "green energy" is going to be the key to restoring America's position as the world's leading economy, check out this report about the fact that investment in that sector is rising at a sharp rate:

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The environmental disaster first disclosed a few days ago is growing much bigger than authorities described:

A coal ash spill in eastern Tennessee that experts were already calling the largest environmental disaster of its kind in the United States is more than three times larger than initially estimated, according to an updated survey by the Tennessee Valley Authority.

Officials at the authority initially said that about 1.7 million cubic yards of wet coal ash had spilled when the earthen retaining wall of an ash pond at the Kingston Fossil Plant, about 40 miles west of Knoxville, gave way on Monday. But on Thursday they released the results of an aerial survey that showed the actual amount was 5.4 million cubic yards, or enough to flood more than 3,000 acres one foot deep.

The amount now said to have been spilled is larger than the amount the authority initially said was in the pond, 2.6 million cubic yards.

But don't worry, we don't know for sure that it will kill the victims:

Mr. Moulton said on Friday that the levels exceeded safety limits for drinking water, but that both metals were filtered out by water treatment processes.

Mercury and arsenic, he said, were “barely detectable” in the samples.

The ash pond was adjacent to the Emory River and near a residential area, where three houses were destroyed by the tide of muddy ash. Water sampled several miles downstream from the spill was safe to drink, but its iron and manganese content exceeded the secondary drinking water standards set by the Environmental Protection Agency, which govern taste and odor but not potential health effects, Mr. Moulton said.

Neither the authority nor the E.P.A. has released the results of tests of soil or the ash itself. Authority officials have said that the ash is not harmful, and the authority has not warned residents of potential dangers, though federal studies show that coal ash can contain dangerous levels of heavy metals and carcinogens.

“You’re not going to be endangered by touching the ash material,” said Barbara Martocci, a spokeswoman for the T.V.A. “You’d have to eat it. You have to get it in your body.”

The Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation also released a statement saying there was no indication of risk unless the ash was ingested.

"Ingested." You mean, as in "inhaled"? Because it seems to me it will be almost impossible for residents to avoid breathing it in. Oh well. Thanks, BushCo!

I hope the new Democratic Congress and the corporate media continue to do their bit for more "clean coal"!

I can't even describe the sheer awesomeness of this site where pieces of coal are singing Christmas carols about clean coal! And you get to put hats on them, and scarves - you'll love it, too. (Thanks to Dr. S. from Redsoxville.)