Federal mining policies, on display in Casper, become new front in fight over coal

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Hat tip, the Newseum, which has the front page of the Casper Star Tribune on display every morning.

Federal mining policies, on display in Casper, become new front in fight over coal

Benjamin Storrow 307-335-5344, [e-mail]
@bstorrow

Updated 11 hrs ago

If there is a war on coal, Casper was its battlefield Tuesday. The combatants — some 300 miners and ranchers, state politicians and environmentalists — descended on the Casper Events Center for the first of six public meetings on the future of the federal coal program.

They came clad in their messages. Cloud Peak Energy miners, bused in from Gillette, wore “Friends of Coal” stickers over their hearts. An organizer for the Powder River Basin Resource Council sported a “No Coal Loopholes” sticker. Speakers framed their messages in fighting, and sometimes apocalyptic terms.

“The faceless, all-powerful government agencies and their environmentalist masters are not immortal, so let’s ride out and beat them,” bellowed Travis Deti, associate director of the Wyoming Mining Association, at a pro-coal rally preceding the event.

Richard Reavey, a lobbyist at Cloud Peak Energy, likened the gathering to a Soviet show trial, one where the outcome was predetermined. ... “All hands on deck,” were needed to address the coming climate crisis, warned Jeremy Nichols of WildEarth Guardians.