Published July 1989 — Download PDF of the original newspaper column
Byrd's-Eye View By U.S. Senator Robert C. Byrd Dropping the Ball on the Environment, the Economy, and Energy Like most Americans, I am concerned about our environment. Currently, roughly 57 percent of America's electric energy generating capacity is coal-based, and coal is now supplying nearly one-quarter of all of our country's energy needs. Environmentalists, however, have long pointed to coal-generated electric power plants as major sources of acid rain. In an effort to remedy much of that problem, and to ensure the continued health and growth of West Virginia's economy and coal industry, I authored legislation in 1984 establishing the national Clean Coal Technology program to promote the use of coal m an environmentally acceptable manner. Recently developed clean coal technologies have proved capable of reducing over 95 percent of sulfur dioxide emissions. Moreover, they will also reduce a high percentage of nitrogen oxide emissions. They are more cost effective than conventional anti-pollution scrubber technologies. Recently, the Administration issued proposals to curb acid rain. Although I compliment the President for striving to reach a consensus on this important subject, I fear that his Administration dropped the ball on this issue. The proposals do not make good environmental, economic, or energy sense. Unfortunately, the Administration's proposals, rather than encouraging the employment of clean coal technologies, invite utilities merely to switch fuels; for example, moving from high-sulfur to low-sulfur coal, without affording the greater emissions reductions that clean coal technology is proving achievable. In addition, since 40 percent of our Nation's coal reserves are high-sulfur, the Administration's proposals threaten the loss of up to 10,000 mining jobs in Eastern coal-producing states; an unfair burden to place on the economies of states like West Virginia. Given America's rising energy demands in an energy-short world, an approach that would serve to discourage the development of technologies that would render vast high-sulfur coal reserves environmentally safer is shortsighted. Certainly, we must curb acid rain. But we need also to protect the economies of coal-producing states like West Virginia. With those goals in mind, I shall work for an acid rain control program that is environmentally effective, economically equitable, and energy wise, and that provides genuine incentives to encourage clean-burning technologies to capitalize on West Virginia's vast coal reserves. July 12, 1989