Leaders Focus On Coal

{Belle, West Virginia}...U.S. Senator Joe Manchin and Governor Earl Ray Tomblin along with industry and labor groups met for a roundtable discussion Wednesday at an event sponsored by FACES of Coal and the West Virginia Coal Association at Walker Machinery in Belle. Manchin said the Obama administration along with Lisa Jackson, the head of the EPA, have a stranglehold on the coal industry, and the EPA is putting out unreasonable guidelines. Manchin said it's time to promote the positive issues of coal not just to West Virginia but to every Senator, Congressman, governor and household in the nation. Manchin said it's time to show what the state of West Virginia has done, what it continues to do and what it has done to clean up the environment over the years. Bill Raney, the president of the West Virginia Coal Association, said the latest EPA regulations which requires carbon sequestration for every new coal fired power plant is unreasonable because the process for carbon sequestration is yet to be perfected. Manchin vowed to go back to Washington and work even harder on the image of coal. Tomblin will reach out to the other 49 governors about the importance of coal to each of their states.