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Shipping coal to Asia is bad for America

Cloud Peak Energy through the local Chamber of Commerce will be sponsoring a presentation by Bozeman Deaconess Hospital this Wednesday at the Holiday Inn. Cloud Peak Energy owns the mines in the Powder River Basin where all of the coal trains coming through the Gallatin Valley originate.

First, I'm not sure Deaconess Health Services is lacking for local media exposure. Second, I think a more appropriate topic would be: With the vast majority of the coal trains through here carrying coal bound for Asia, when are the impacts on our communities going to be addressed?

Coal is taxed based on the value when it leaves the mine, an approach designed around an assumption of domestic use, American coal fueling American commerce. No one envisioned we'd be shipping coal to Asia. So if the preferred economic alternative for Asian countries is not to spend money to modernize their antique coal-burning plants with pollution controls so they can burn their own coal, and instead choose to buy low-sulfur coal from the Powder River Basin and ship it to the other side of the planet, then we're selling our coal too cheap.

The combination of rigged federal coal lease prices and the low-value tax rate means there's no money being collected to offset the cost of the interruption of commerce caused by the trains all along their route to Vancouver. By subsidizing Asian energy costs, we make it cheaper to move American jobs to the Pacific Rim.

Source: Billings Gazette