Published: July 12, 2008 12:21 am      

Lawmakers believe Reid is ‘shortsighted’ on coal

Warning: Coal is hazardous to your health.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid didn’t exactly put his criticism in those words, but his demeaning attack on West Virginia’s bedrock industry doesn’t rest well with some members of the state’s delegation in Congress.

“Coal makes us sick,” the Nevada senator told Fox Business News in an interview last week.

Reid found some support in the American Lung Association, which blamed 24,000 deaths annually on coal-fired power plants. Besides the fatalities, the association pointed to half a million attacks of asthma and 40,000 heart attacks prompted by the pollution of coal.

But his remarks drew a unanimous rebuke from West Virginians on Capitol Hill.

“I’m very disappointed by Sen. Reid’s comments, and I’ve let him know just that,” Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., told The Register-Herald Friday.

“He’s just wrong about coal, especially clean West Virginia coal, and the incredible role that it can play in meeting our future energy needs.”

“Sen. Reid has good intentions, but his comments are short-sighted,” Rep. Nick Rahall, D-W.Va., said in a statement.

“Growing our use of renewable energy is a laudable goal, but coal is going to be around for a long time. It is a viable, abundant source of energy available right here in our own country, and if we fail to tap the potential of coal — by investing more, not less, in clean coal technologies — we will keep undercutting our efforts to get out from under foreign nations that have us hooked on their oil.”

Sen. Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va., who grew up in a coal mining community in Raleigh County, likewise pointed to the fuel’s critical role in weaning America off foreign oil.

“While renewable energies have a role to play, they are not a panacea, and cannot begin to replace American coal, which accounts for almost one half of the electricity in our country,” he said.

In his home state, coal provides 99 percent of the electricity that keeps home and businesses humming.

“Majority Leader Reid is entitled to his own opinion about coal, but the facts speak for themselves — coal is affordable and abundant, and it is here to stay for a long time,” Byrd said.

“Therefore, we need to find better ways to burn coal more cleanly and efficiently. The technologies exist to do so, and more could be done very soon if only the United States government would wake up and understand that it is cheaper to invest in clean coal technology than it is to fight wars.”

As Europe opens more coal-fired power plants, China is creating more coal-to-liquids facilities, Rahall noted.

“We need to lead that effort by putting more American know-how into making coal cleaner and more efficient so that we can help other nations transition to the cleaner coal power of the future,” he said.

“If we fail to do so, we are only exporting carbon emissions overseas while still having to face the challenges that those emissions pose at home.”

In Byrd’s estimation, the issue needn’t be one of fossils versus non-fossils in devising an energy strategy for the future.

“Instead,” he said, “we must focus on shifting our energy supply from foreign to domestic sources, and how to burn those fuels as cleanly and efficiently as possible.”

— E-mail: mannix@register-herald.com