April 25, 2024 - The U.S. EPA released the final version of its new rules regulating coal-fired power plants Thursday morning.

West Virginia coal industry stakeholders have warned the rules mean the effective elimination of the state's remaining coal-powered electrical generation facilities. Officials have been vowing to push back and sounding the alarm for nearly a year.

The final rules are intended to "to protect all communities from pollution and improve public health without disrupting the delivery of reliable electricity," according to an EPA press release.

The suite of final rules includes:

    - A final rule for existing coal-fired and new natural-gas-fired power plants that would ensure that all coal-fired plants that plan to run in the long-term and all new baseload gas-fired plants control 90% of their carbon pollution.

    - A final rule strengthening and updating the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) for coal-fired power plants, tightening the emissions standard for toxic metals by 67% and finalizing a 70% reduction in the emissions standard for mercury from existing lignite-fired sources.

    - A final rule to reduce pollutants discharged through wastewater from coal-fired power plants by more than 660 million pounds per year, ensuring cleaner water for affected communities, including communities with environmental justice concerns that are disproportionately impacted.

    - A final rule that will require the safe management of coal ash that is placed in areas that were unregulated at the federal level until now, including at previously used disposal areas that may leak and contaminate groundwater.

U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., issued a scathing rebuke to the rules at 5 a.m. Thursday, saying the goal of the rules is to achieve "death by a thousand cuts to America’s fossil fuel industry."

"It is obvious that the ultimate goal of these EPA regulations is to stop the use of fossil fuels to produce reliable energy in the United States by forcing the premature closure of coal plants and blocking new natural gas plants," Manchin said in statement issued in his capacity as chair of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

"The Administration is more frightened by political threats from climate activists than by the warnings from our nation’s electricity reliability regulators and grid operators that these rules will further strain our already at-risk power grid," he said.

U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., ranking member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said she plans to introduce a resolution aimed at overturning the rules.

“To protect millions of Americans, including energy workers, against executive overreach that has already been tried and rejected by the Supreme Court, I will be introducing a Congressional Review Act resolution of disapproval to overturn the EPA’s job-killing regulations announced today,” she said.

West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey said he is "confident this new rule is not going to be upheld."

“Making matters worse, the administration packaged this rule with several other rules aimed at destroying traditional energy providers," he said. "We’re reviewing those rules as well, and we’ll be working with state and industry partners to implement the best strategy for fighting back against Biden’s anti-energy agenda.”

Chris Hamilton, president of the West Virginia Coal Association, said the rules are "specifically designed" to force the state's nine coal-fired power plants to close.

"What EPA is doing is economic suicide," he said. "West Virginians will lose jobs. Americans will continue to pay increasingly more expensive power bills. Our state and national electric systems will become even more unreliable as the grid weakens and baseload power supplies are severely reduced. And just as West Virginia will likely import its future energy, America’s energy security will become more dependent on foreign countries and potentially foreign adversaries."

In 2022, coal-fired electric power plants accounted for 89% of West Virginia’s total net generation of electricity, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Hydroelectric power and wind energy contributed 7%, and natural gas provided about 4%.

As of the end of March, there were 10,194 employees working at underground mines in the state and another 3,235 employees working at surface mines, according to the West Virginia Office of Miner’s Health Safety and Training (OMHST).

The OMHST data also includes 653 quarry workers, 1,562 “prep plant” employees and 39,838 independent contractors, for a total of 55,482 employees of the state’s mining industry.

In 2023, the state’s coal industry produced “about 86 million tons” of coal, Hamilton said during recent testimony before the West Virginia Legislature’s Joint Standing Committee on Energy and Manufacturing.

“That’s about 55% thermal, 45% metallurgical,” he said. “But the real surprising aspect of statistical base today is we are exporting about 50% of total output. The amount of thermal coal that we export is growing exponentially.”

According to the Energy Information Administration’s historical data, which shows state energy production estimates from 1960 to 2020, West Virginia produced 118,944 thousand short tons of coal in 1960.

Production levels remained above 100,000 thousand short tons per year throughout the beginning 1970s, before falling to 95,433 thousand short tons in 1977 and 85,314 thousand short tons in 1978.

The state’s coal production peaked in the 1990s — 173,734 thousand short tons were produced in 1997, and 171,145 thousand short tons were produced in 1998.

While 2008 saw 157,805 thousand short tons mined, production began to decline, with 95,633 thousand short tons produced in 2015 and 67,380 thousand short tons produced in 2020.