By Tom Kenworthy, Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Hundreds of thousands of people have stated their opposition to a proposed big expansion of a coal strip mine in Utah that would harm Bryce Canyon National Park and the recreation economy associated with the southern Utah attraction that has enjoyed federal protection for nearly 90 years.

Known for its slot canyons and ghostly red rock spires called hoodoos, Bryce is threatened by a plan to greatly expand the nearby existing Coal Hollow Mine from 635 acres to 3,576 acres, with a majority of the expansion taking place on public lands. If completed, the mine would then include areas just 10 miles from Bryce.

The National Park Service, Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have all weighed in with serious concerns about the mine proposal, as has the Hopi Tribe, which estimates up to 74 archaeological sites could be harmed or ruined. Park Service objections are particularly strong, and that agency has recommended the project not go forward, saying:

The park has determined that [the mine expansion would have] adverse effects on surrounding comunities, the tourism industry of southern Utah, air quality standards, dark skies conservation, and regional wildlife

In a letter last week, Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), the ranking minority member of the House Committee on Natural Resources, urged Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to “consider the signal this decision sends regarding the future of our parks, forests, monuments, and wildlife areas and reject the call for expanding coal mining.”

Repeating concerns raised by other federal agencies about air quality, the park’s well-known night skies, natural quiet and wetlands and wildlife, Markey also reminded Salazar of the Obama administration’s commitment to clean energy development on public lands:

Proceeding with the expansion of coal mining in a sensitive area so close to a national park calls in question our dedication to promoting renewable energy development both on and off public lands

More than 210,000 comments have been been submitted to public land managers in opposition to the strip mine expansion.

Interior’s Bureau of Land Management has issued a draft environmental analysis of the coal mine, with a proposed action that would allow the expansion to go forward.

As it has in regard to several new coal mining leases in Wyoming’s Powder River Basin, the BLM has closed its eyes to the Utah mine’s impact on climate change, contending that existing climate prediction models cannot estimate potential climate change impacts from one mine.

In November, two climate scientists called that dodge flawed and scientifically indefensible.

 

Coal, oil, and gas companies have contributed at least $1.2 million to Restore Our Future, the super PAC supporting Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, a ThinkProgress Green analysis reveals.

The super PAC Restore Our Future has fundraised $30 million to Romney to the White House. The super PAC spent $800,000 on pro-Romney ads, but it has flooded his Republican opponents with attack ads totaling 17 million. Restore Our Future’s war chest comes from under 200 donors, 85 percent of whom had already donated the maximum amount to the Romney campaign.

Romney’s campaign has raised at least $500,000 from the oil and gas industry, according to Open Secrets. But his super PAC allows special interests another chance to exert their influence. While many of the super PAC’s donors come from the financial sector, coal, oil, and gas have also flocked to Restore Our Future:

Coal mining:
– Oxbow Carbon:$750,000

– Oxbow President Bill Koch: $250,000

– Consol Energy: $150,000

Oil and Gas:
– Ballard Exploration: $25,000

– Bassoe Offshore President Jonathan Fairbanks: $25,000

– Murphy Wade of Murphy Oil Corporation: $15,000

– Joseph Grigg of American Energy Operations: $5,000

– Total for oil, gas, and coal: $1,220,000

In total, coal, oil, and gas companies contributed at least $1.2 million to Restore Our Future’s $18 million haul in the last half of 2011. The coal company Oxbow Carbon, alone, contributed $1 million, including a $250,000 donation from billionaire Oxbow CEO Bill Koch — the brother of oil billionaires Charles and David of Koch Industries.

With Perry out of the race, Romney has received more money from mining and oil than any other presidential candidate. The pro-Perry super PAC “Make Us Great Again” took in an outstanding $1.3 million from oil companies and executives during the last six months of his run.

Although Restore Our Future has no “formal” ties to the candidate, the donations reflect Romney’s right pivot on energy and climate concerns. The Massachusetts governor that once supported regulations on coal pollution, has since questioned whether carbon is even dangerous. In addition to becoming a climate denier, he now blasts government support for cleaner energy — despite creating a state green fund as governor.

You can expect Romney to sound suspiciously like his rich polluting backers, as dirty money continues to flood Restore Our Future and Romney’s campaign stash.

A coal-industry astroturf group is running a public campaign to harass Pennsylvania State University climate scientist Michael Mann for his “radical agenda” of climate science. The Common Sense Movement/Secure Energy for America Political Action Committee (CSM/SEAPAC) has established a website asking people to criticize the Penn State Speakers Forum for allowing Michael Mann to speak about the climate change challenge. “Join us in calling on the administration to disinvite the disgraced academic,” the group says on its Facebook page.

On the webpage, CSM/SEAPAC accuses Mann of “manipulating scientific data to align with his extreme political views on global warming”:

On February 9th, the Penn State Forum Speaker’s Series is featuring Professor Michael Mann in a speech regarding global warming. This is the same professor who is at the center of the ‘Climategate’ controversy for allegedly manipulating scientific data to align with his extreme political views on global warming. Join us in calling on the administrators of Penn State to end its support of Michael Mann and his radical agenda.

The suggested text for the letter to editor says Mann is “conspiring with his left-wing cronies to intimidate and silence those who would dare to question his intentions,” tarring Mann with “questionable ethics” and “extreme political activism.”

Michael Mann, one of the most most respected scientists in the field of paleoclimatology, has been the victim of a long-running harassment and intimidation campaign by right-wing ideologues and conspiracy theorists, including political and legal threats by Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) and Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli. After hackers stole emails from a climate unit in Great Britain, climate deniers renewed their attacks on Mann, forcing several academic inquiries, all of which debunked the slanderous charges.

SEAPAC is a wing of the Pittsburgh-based astroturf group Common Sense Movement, which is running the “I Am Coal” campaign. Contributors include James Clifford Forrest III, president of coal company Rosebud Mining, David Young, president of the Bituminous Coal Operators’ Association, and the top executives of Swanson Industries, a West Virginia mining equipment company.

Read SEAPAC’s suggested letter to the editor for its harrassment campaign against Mann: Read more

Our guest blogger is Josh Nelson, Campaign Manager for CREDO Action.

After a poorly publicized hearing last week, the Port of St. Helens on the Oregon coast approved a secretive deal to lease space to two dirty coal companies, paving the way for the port to become the largest coal terminal on the U.S. West Coast.

In an interview with The Oregonian last summer, Gov. John Kitzhaber (D-OR) said the approval of coal export facilities “should not happen in the dead of night” and that “we must have an open, vigorous public debate before any projects move forward.”

But that’s not what happened last week.

At Wednesday’s hearing, a large majority of those who testified were strongly opposed to the lease options moving forward. But that apparently didn’t matter to the Port of St. Helens Commissioners, who voted 4-1 and 5-0 to approve the two deals.

Vance Fraser, a Clatskanie resident who testified last week, wasn’t pleased with the outcome. “It’s clear that the commissioners were just going through the motions and had their minds made up,” he said. “The worst of it is that people who are impacted didn’t even know that a decision was going to be made.”

If the big coal companies get their way, up to 38 million tons of coal per year could soon be shipped through Oregon on uncovered trains and exported through the Port of St. Helens, leaving a cloud of dangerous coal dust and diesel fumes throughout the state. It would also rapidly escalate climate pollution by supplying coal to overseas markets.

As an elected official concerned about public health — and as a doctor who understands the health risks massive coal export projects pose — Governor Kitzhaber needs to take a strong stand by doing everything in his power to stop these projects before they start.

Our guest blogger is A. Siegel, of Get Energy Smart.

In association with the State of the Union address, the White House released “A Blueprint for An America Built to Last.” Within it, “A Blueprint to Make the Most of America’s Energy Resources,” from which we learn that “nuclear power, efficient natural gas, and clean coal” are “renewable energy” sources:

The President called on Congress to build on our success in positioning America to be the world’s leading manufacturer in high-tech batteries and reiterated his call for action on clean energy tax credits and a national goal of moving toward clean sources of electricity by setting a standard for utility companies, so that by 2035, 80% of the nation’s electricity will come from clean sources, including renewable energy sources like wind, solar, biomass, hydropower, nuclear power, efficient natural gas, and clean coal.

This is, almost certainly an issue of poor writing. It could have read “nuclear power, efficient natural gas, clean coal, and renewable energy sources like wind, solar, biomass, and hydropower.” That rewrite, however, would have put renewables at the back of the line and hurt the President among those strongly supportive of greater investment in renewable energy deployment and research — that is to say, the majority of Americans. Yet, in last year’s State of the Union address the President said that “clean energy jobs” meant nuclear power, offshore oil and gas drilling, and “clean coal.”

All the uranium on planet Earth was formed 6.6 billion years ago and is not “renewable.” Now, if we wish to speak in terms of tens of millions of years, one could argue that coal, natural gas, and oil are renewable. Today’s biomass will, over that sort of geologic time, create (renew, one might say) new fossil fuel supplies. However, in any rational discussion, these are not “renewable” fuels within any context of human civilization.

This section, however, has far more serious problems — most importantly, the President’s whole-sale throwing in the hat with the “natural gas is good for the environment and economy” propaganda that is a Potemkin village when it comes to addressing the nation’s real challenges.