Coal news and updates

Montana is entering a debate over a large proposed port in Washington state that could someday move large amounts of Montana coal to markets in Asia.

 

Montana Attorney General Tim Fox and his counterpart in North Dakota recently sent the Washington Department of Ecology a letter, asking for the agency to limit its environmental evaluation to within Washington's borders.

 

They want Washington officials to avoid considering effects in other states - or on other matters like global climate change. The letter argues that the Commerce Clause and Supremacy Clause of the Constitution mean concerns beyond Washington state's borders should be left to the federal government.

 

"If they make substantive actions and decisions based on those things, it may violate the law," Fox said. "And then secondly is Montana's interests in having access to a market if you will for its products, just like Washington has access to markets for their products."

 

"I find it distressing that our Attorney General seems to care more about the finances of an out-of-state coal company like Arch Coal than it does about Montanans who are going to be impacted by increased rail traffic," Anne Hedges with the Montana Environmental Information Center countered.

"Montanans' property values are going to go down. They're going to be impacted by the noise, by the dust, by the traffic," she added.

 

The letter was written by Seattle lawyer Rob McKenna, a former Republican attorney general who ran for governor in Washington 2012. The nine-page document is expected to cost Montana something under $15,000.

 

Source: www.kxlf.com