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By LISA DUVALL, Associate Local News Editor
THE WITNESSES who gathered at Belmont Technical College Tuesday morning for a congressional field hearing on the Kyoto Global Warming Treaty's impact on Ohio's coal industry were united in a common cause: to reinforce their positions against implementation of the treaty.
The list of witnesses brought together by U.S. Rep. Bob Ney, R-St. Clairsville, and U.S. Rep. Richard Pombo, a Republican who represents California's 11th Congressional District, read like a who's who of the area coal industry, manufacturing sector and mine workers' union.
Those offering testimony were Robert E. Murray, director of The Ohio Valley Coal Co. and the American Energy Corp., St. Clairsville; John Grisham, president of Buckeye Industrial Mining Co., Lisbon; Charles Ungurean, president of Oxford Mining Co., Coshocton; "Babe" Erdos, International executive board member of the United Mine Workers of America, District 6; James Kosowski, director of corporate communications at Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel; Richard Homrighausen, mayor of Dover; Gary Obloy, executive director of the Belmont County Community Action Commission; Eugene Trisko, attorney, International Union, UMWA; and Dr. John Christy, a climatologist at the University of Alabama.
Pombo is chairman of the U.S House Resources Committee, which has jurisdiction over all aspects of coal mining regulation and reclamation of mined lands. In his opening remarks, Pombo noted it was refreshing to travel outside the Washington Beltway and hear from the working men and women who would be impacted most by implementation of the Kyoto protocols.
"Working men and women in this audience produce a commodity that generates over 50 percent of America's electricity," Pombo said. "Regrettably, this staple of America's energy supply faces formidable foreign and domestic challenges."
Those offering testimony provided a look at how the Kyoto Treaty, which seeks to reduce and tax carbon dioxide emissions from coal-burning power plants, would impact the coal industry locally, resulting in thousands of lost jobs - both direct and indirect coal jobs - and lost revenues for the state and municipalities.
Murray said a recent study by Pennsylvania State University showed that up to 11 secondary jobs are created for each coal industry position, making subsidiaries of Murray Energy responsible for almost 17,000 jobs in the tri-state area and nearly 12,000 positions in Eastern Ohio.
"The subject of the Kyoto Global Warming Treaty is a human issue, not an environmental matter to me, Chairman Pombo and Congressman Ney," Murray said. "You see, I know the names of many of the people whose jobs, standards of living and lives would be destroyed in this area if the United Nations' Kyoto Global Warming Treaty were ever adopted by the United States."
Murray said the Kyoto Treaty currently under consideration in the U.S. Senate exempts 80 percent of the world, including population centers such as China and India, from compliance.
Others providing testimony indicated neither country has environmental or safety standards as high as the United States for its mines or coal-burning power plants, thus not allowing the U.S. to compete on a level playing field internationally.
Murray also introduced the question of global warming, noting that "there is no scientific consensus that so-called global warming is even occurring. Moreover, there is no scientific evidence that human activities are responsible."
Christy, professor of atmospheric science and director of the Earth System Science Center at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, is also Alabama's state climatologist and recently served as lead author of the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Christy said carbon dioxide is not a pollutant and an increasing concentration of carbon dioxide does not pose a toxic risk to the planet. While climate models suggest increases in carbon dioxide will significantly affect the climate, Christy said, real data suggests otherwise.
Christy supported his assertion with real observations from balloon datasets created by independent organizations, some with data from as many as 400 different balloon stations.
"The inability of climate models to achieve consistency on this scale is a serious shortcoming and suggests projections from such models be viewed with great skepticism," Christy testified.
"Any of the proposals to reduce energy consumption by mandate would do nothing measurable to reduce to climate impacts of carbon dioxide. However, they would cause increases in energy costs, i.e. taxes. These additional taxes would fall disproportionately on the poor, who buy gasoline and home heating at the same rate as everyone else. Their lives would be made more precarious as a result," Christy said.
President George Bush rejected the Kyoto Treaty in 2001 and focused the debate on economic incentives and technological innovation. Ohio's air quality has improved substantially in the last 30 years, Ungurean said, because of the development and deployment of clean coal technologies, "an area where Ohio has established itself as a national leader.
"With additional investments in clean coal technologies by both the public and private sector, we can reasonably look forward to a future where coal can continue to provide economic benefits as a low-cost source of energy - and our air quality can continue to improve through enhanced environmental efficiencies," Ungurean said.
Grisham and Kosowski both drew parallels between the beleaguered domestic steel industry and coal, noting also that steel manufacturing depends on the availability on low-cost coal for electricity. Kosowski said Wheeling-Pitt uses more than 1.5 million tons of coal per year and is already spending more than $50 million per year to operate and maintain its pollution control equipment, something the steel industries in developing countries like China and India do not do, Kosowski said.
Erdos presented the union point of view, that of concern for declining membership, fewer jobs and difficulties for those miners who have already retired and who depend on continued coal production for benefits.
"Ohio is recognized as having one of the best clean coal technology programs in the country," Erdos said. "In District 6, we believe environmental restrictions should be achieved through the implementation of clean coal technologies. This would preserve jobs and protect rural communities."
The Kyoto Treaty provides economic benefit, not environmental benefits, Pombo said.
"We all care deeply about environmental issues. It's a basic American value that's easy to deceive people on," Pombo said. "It's a false choice: a clean environment or a healthy economy.
"It's possible to have both in the Ohio Valley."
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