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July 2008 Edition Scott Machinery Company
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EVENTS
UTAH LABOR COMMISSIONER APPOINTS Salt Lake City, Utah, July 10, 2008 - Commissioner Sherrie Hayashi has named Garth J. Nielsen of Helper, Utah, as Director of the state's new Office of Coal Mine Safety (OCMS), effective July 14, 2008. The OCMS was established at the recommendation of the Utah Mine Safety Commission, appointed by Governor Jon Huntsman.
Nielsen has been employed in the mining industry for over 35 years, most recently as Director of Mine Development at Interwest Mining. At Interwest, Nielsen was responsible for recruiting, hiring and training employees. Throughout his mining career, Nielsen has had vast experience in both ground control and underground construction, which included longwall production and supervision. "Garth's strong commitment to mining safety is evident through his valuable experience with developing and implementing numerous company safety plans covering all aspects of coal mining operations throughout his career," said Commissioner Hayashi". "He is also experienced in working with mandates and criteria of the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) which will be integral with this position. His qualifications and experience bring great leadership and balance to his position as Utah's first Director of the Office of Coal Mine Safety." As Director of the OCMS, Nielsen will be responsible for monitoring mine safety and will act as Utah liaison with MSHA as well. To contact the Office of Coal Mine Safety, please call the Toll-Free Number: 1-888-9UT-MINE (988-6463)
WORKING 4 UTAH INITIATIVE Beginning the week of August 4, 2008, the offices of the Department of Natural Resources will be CLOSED on all Fridays. This is in conjunction with Governor Huntsman's "Working 4 Utah" initiative. In addition, there will be new, extended hours of operation for the public. The new hours will be from 7:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., Monday through Thursday, except holidays. All state park recreation facilities and DNR law enforcement efforts will maintain current operating hours. The State of Utah hopes to realize energy savings and conservation by closing buildings on Fridays. Please note: the new hours of operation and Friday closures will extend to most state agencies. You are advised to check with the various agencies before you visit. Or, log onto: www.utah.gov for further information
REVENUES PUT ENERGYSOLUTIONS Engineering News-Record put EnergySolutions Inc. at the top of its list of largest "all-environmental" engineering companies, based on its revenues. The magazine also ranked the Salt Lake City nuclear-waste company No. 7 on its "Top 200" list for firms that count environmental engineering as part of their business. "It's gratifying to see our progress recognized by such a prestigious publication," Steve Creamer, company chairman and chief executive officer, said in a news release. "This remarkable growth is a testament to the skills and dedication of our nearly 5,500 employees across North America and Europe." The magazine called the company "a major player in nuclear-waste cleanup and management" and one of the "movers and shakers" in the industry.
KENNECOTT METALS TO BE USED Rio Tinto, the parent company of Kennecott Utah Copper, said Tuesday it has been selected by Wal-Mart to provide gold and silver for "fully traceable, responsibly produced" jewelry. The partnership is part of a Wal-Mart initiative to achieve 100 percent traceability for all of the gold and silver jewelry sold at its stores, Rio Tinto said. Wal-Mart's "Love, Earth" jewelry collection will be produced with 100 percent traceable gold and silver mined and manufactured based on industry-leading criteria, initially focused on gold and silver jewelry using metal from Kennecott Utah Copper's Bingham Canyon Mine. This partnership will allow customers to trace their "Love, Earth" jewelry back to the mine it came from by going online. Kennecott Utah Copper annually produces about 300,000 tons of copper, 500,000 ounces of gold, 4 million ounces of silver, about 30 million pounds of molybdenum, and 1 million tons of sulfuric acid, a byproduct of the smelting process. It employs 1,800 people and hundreds of contractors.
KENNECOTT OWNER TO SPEND $2.15B TO EXPAND IN BRAZIL Rio Tinto PLC, which owns the Kennecott operations in Utah and is the world's largest iron ore producer, said The London-based company wants to boost production of iron ore, a key ingredient in steel production, at Corumba more than sixfold, from 2.2 million tons to 14.1 million tons. A study will also be conducted into whether the company can expand capacity to 25.6 million tons a year, Rio Tinto said. Output from Corumba is expected to begin in the fourth quarter of 2010 and the study is to be completed by mid-2009. Rio Tinto outlined plans last year to more than triple its output of iron ore.
MUSEUM CLOSER TO REALITY Curious mountain bikers riding the Bonneville Shoreline Trail gawked at a large dinosaur puppet Tuesday, as ground was broken for a new $103 million Utah Museum of Natural History. "This is a little bit about people, a little bit about land and a little bit about our heritage," Gov. Jon Huntsman told about 700 people gathered on the site south of Red Butte Garden where the museum is scheduled to open early in 2011. "It all comes together in this museum." The new museum features a futuristic design with elements of concrete, stone and copper incorporated into a building that will be terraced into the foothills near the edge of what was once Lake Bonneville. Its location has prompted concern among some of the bicyclists, hikers and joggers who use the Bonneville Shoreline Trail. Julie Wolfe, who walked the trail with her two dogs moments before the start of the ceremony, said she worries that access to the trail will be limited as the museum is built. "Trail users are not happy," she said. "The museum is fine but it's access to the trail that is the problem." Museum spokeswoman Patti Carpenter said the trail will remain open during construction. One reason is that the trail segment near the museum is built over a large The existing museum, housed in a building that once served as the University of Utah's library on the old lower part of campus, contains about 1.2 million artifacts, many of which cannot be displayed because of a lack of space. The new 161,000 square feet museum will be double the size of the current facility. It will be named after Rio Tinto, the parent company of Kennecott Copper, which contributed $15 million towards construction. Exhibits in the new museum will be organized into eight thematic areas and three learning labs, ranging from Utah Sky, an indoor-outdoor interpretive space, to Past Worlds, which will examine Utah's ancient environments. Money for the museum has come from federal grants, state government and private donations. University of Utah President Michael Young said $81 million has been raised, and $22 million more is needed. He announced that the George and Dolores Dore Eccles Foundation had issued a $5 million challenge grant to jump start the project's final fundraising push. A peek inside the museum The new $103 million Utah Museum of Natural History, expected to be completed in 2011, will have eight thematic exhibit areas:
AT UTAH MINING ASSOCIATION by David A. Litvin "THE BEST PLACE TO BE IN AUGUST" The month of July is the time most Utahn's think about vacations with the kids out of school, usually great outdoor weather for camping, a time to travel, and slower work obligations in most industries. However, the July this year has presented challenges to all of us for our normal type of summer activities. The weather has been unusually hot (some would say as a result of global warming), the price of gasoline and diesel fuels have been at record high levels (Iraqi war? Increasing global demand?) putting a damper on the economics of driving or flying, the dollar is at record lows against the euro and most other international currencies, making travel abroad quite expensive, and the large California July fires and the record heat have made outdoor camping a dicey option. In addition, the sub-prime mortgage fiasco has put a stain on the Nation's financial markets, causing the worst So, what are the bright spots for Utah's mining and supplier industries? First of all, commodity prices continue to be strong, and are expected to continue as the economics of China and India maintain their strong expansions. In addition, and maybe more important than most people are willing to admit, your Association's 93rd Annual Convention is only 2 weeks away. (See convention materials at end of this newsletter). So, if you want to feel good, get away for a couple of days, learn all that is happening in our industry, receive additional business for 2009, and play some outstanding golf with your colleagues, come to Park City on August 14th and 15th . I look forward to seeing you there! Remember, there is no better place to be.
MINE SAFETY CITATIONS INCREASE, MSHA SAYS As coal mines enter more challenging environments and the acceptance of accidents diminishes, inspectors are handing out more citations than ever before - a trend that's likely to continue, a federal mining official said Tuesday. Kevin Stricklin, who oversees the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration's coal division, said his agency has handed out 73,000 citations in the first nine months of the fiscal year and probably will reach 100,000 by year's end (Sept. 30). The fines for those citations will add up to $84 million, more than triple the $25 million assessed last year. And with 170 new trainees "biting at the bit to inspect coal mines for the right reason - to make them safer," he expects enforcement only to increase in the years ahead. Stricklin outlined MSHA's increased enforcement activity near the conclusion of a two-day mine safety symposium organized by former MSHA boss Davitt McAteer with assistance from the Utah Labor Commission. McAteer, now a vice president at Wheeling Jesuit University in West Virginia, held this third annual conference in Salt Lake City because of its proximity to last August's Crandall Canyon mine disaster in Emery County. Six miners were entombed there Aug. 6 when the mine's walls imploded. Three rescuers died 10 days later in a second violent outburst. MSHA's investigation of the tragedy will be released Thursday. "Utah had been off the [mine safety] radar screen until Crandall Canyon," said Stricklin, noting that agency officials had been concentrating more on responding to issues - the strength of seals, the use of breathing apparatus, the response times of mine-rescue crews - that became apparent in three deadly mining accidents in West Virginia early in 2006. But Crandall Canyon suddenly elevated concerns about the hazards of mining deep underground, with mines' ground-control systems subjected to incredible pressure from the weight of a mountain overhead. Stricklin said that although mining is not nearly as dangerous as a century ago, new threats are constantly arising as conditions change in the Earth and in the industry. "We're going into areas that are not as conducive to getting coal as in the past," he said. "We have to make sure we're putting in better plans for conditions we haven't been in before." Examining statistics for Utah, which has some of the country's deepest mines, Stricklin noted that 15 percent (54) of the 346 incidents here in the past two years involved bumps similar to but much smaller and less devastating than Crandall Canyon. "That's something we have to be cognizant of," he said. "We can't say that's what happens in Utah and we have to accept it." Consequently, inspectors out of MSHA's Price field office have handed out 4,000 citations in the past couple of years and four more "orders," which are more serious than citations. As is the case nationwide, a large percentage of those are for accumulations of potentially explosive or flammable coal dust in a mine, prompting Stricklin to observe that if he was a mine operator, "I'd put more people with shovels" in those areas to keep them clean. Like other speakers before him, he said the commitment to safety starts at the top but includes everyone from owners to individual miners. "Everybody has to take their little part of the world and make sure it's safe."
MINERS SAFER SINCE CAVE-IN? Nearly a year after the collapse of the Crandall Canyon coal mine killed nine men, the top federal mine safety official said Monday that steps have been taken that "absolutely" make working in Utah's mines safer. Acting Assistant Labor Secretary Richard Stickler said that, since the Crandall Canyon disaster, the agency has implemented a more rigorous safety screening process for proposals to work in deep mines like those in Utah. That includes requiring a thorough review by the Mine Safety and Health Administration's technical experts of proposals to extract coal in mines that are more than 1,000 feet deep and those that don't meet minimum stability factors in computer modeling. "There's no doubt that any time you add another level of review, there are chances you'll catch things that somebody else didn't catch," said Stickler, following his speech at an international mine safety symposium in Salt Lake City. About 15 mine plans have been reviewed since the change was implemented. The deep mines like those in Utah are prone to "bumps" or "bounces" - where the intense pressure bearing down on the underground tunnels can cause coal to explode from the pillars and walls supporting the roof. A massive bounce on Aug. 6, 2007, entombed six miners - Manuel Sanchez, Brandon Phillips, Jose Luis Hernandez, Don Erickson, Carlos Payan and Kerry Allred. A subsequent bounce killed three would-be rescuers - Brandon Kimber, Dale Black and Gary Jensen. At Crandall Canyon, mining was being done at about 1,800 feet below the surface, and the mine design did not meet recommended stability ratings in computer modeling. After a nearly yearlong investigation, MSHA will release its report on the accident Thursday afternoon after a private briefing with the families of the victims in Price that morning. "One of the things I can promise you is we will take what we've learned from this report . . . and do everything we can to prevent a similar accident from occurring again in the future," Stickler said. MSHA is also taking a closer look at mines using a process known as retreat mining, where the thick coal pillars supporting the roof are cut away, causing the roof to fall in. The Crandall Canyon miners were using the process to extract coal on Aug. 6. Stickler said that each month the agency now has inspectors in every mine section using retreat mining to ensure the mining plan has adequate safety measures and is being followed. The government's technical experts also visited 17 of the most bump-prone mines to decide if additional precautions were warranted, and the agency has created a detailed checklist with specific criteria that must be reviewed at every step of the mine plan approval. "We can do more. We can always do more and we're still working on addressing additional areas," Stickler said. Former Assistant Secretary J. Davitt McAteer, who organized the symposium, said the steps MSHA has taken since Crandall needed to be done, and more may be necessary. "As we're understanding the difficulty that we're facing with these deep mines, then we're going to have to have a higher standard that mine operators are going to have to meet," he said.
AUDIT FINDS SERIOUS HAZARDS The government has endangered the public's health and safety by failing to clean up abandoned mines on federal land in the West, according to a scathing audit released Friday. The Interior Department's inspector general found dangerous levels of arsenic, lead and mercury, along with gaping cavities, at dilapidated hard-rock mining sites easily accessible to visitors and residents. Bureau of Land Management supervisors told staff to ignore the problems, and employees who tried to report contaminated sites were threatened with retaliation, the audit said. At least 12 people were killed in accidents at abandoned mine sites between 2004 and 2007, and "the potential for more deaths and injuries are ominous," it said. The mines are mostly on federal land in California, Nevada and Arizona. The California Department of Conservation estimates there are currently about 47,000 abandoned mines in California. Other surveys have estimated there are about 500,000 such sites nationwide, where gold, silver, copper, lead and other minerals were once mined. "The findings of this audit paint a picture of compelling urgency, which should trigger a quick call to action by both the department and Congress," the audit concluded. Congressional action may not be quick to come. For years lawmakers have tried but failed to rewrite the General Mining Law of 1872, which opened federal lands for mining but contained negligible requirements for clean up. Last year the House passed a reform bill to create a clean up fund for abandoned mines and force mining companies to pay royalties, like coal and other extraction industries already do. But efforts have stalled in the Senate. The main obstacle is Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., a gold miner's son who has long protected the powerful gold-mining industry in his home state. House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Nick Rahall, D-W.Va., said the audit painted "an abysmal picture." "It captures a snapshot of agencies that are failing to oversee abandoned hard rock mines, allowing these scarred properties to pose real and serious threats to the health and safety of Americans," Rahall said. "This report underscores the need to pass meaningful reform of the law before additional tragedies occur."
MSHA CITES POOR DESIGN, ANEMIC OVERSIGHT IN CRANDALL CANYON DISASTER The Crandall Canyon coal mine was so poorly engineered that it was primed for a collapse, but federal regulators failed repeatedly to catch the flaws and approved a plan that was "destined to fail," a pair of reports on the disaster said today. Six miners died in a catastrophic collapse in the central Utah mine on Aug. 6, and three rescuers were killed and six injured 10 days later. The investigation by the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration found that the mine was inadequately designed; that the operator violated the approved mine plan, further weakening the structure; and that information signaling potential danger was withheld. MSHA hit the operator, Genwal Resources Inc., with $1.6 million in fines for a series of violations it characterized as highly negligent and showing reckless disregard. It also fined the company's engineering firm, Agapito Associates Inc., $220,000 for showing reckless disregard in its analysis of the roof-control plan. Assistant Labor Secretary Richard Stickler said it is the largest fine in any coal mine disaster. Meantime, a Labor Department review was harshly critical of MSHA's role in the disaster, saying the agency repeatedly failed to detect any of the warning signs and deficiencies in the mine. Taken in tandem, the reports show that the Aug. 6 disaster was set in motion more than two years ago with poor design, a shoddy approval process, an operator that violated its mine plan and three times failed to report serious structural problems, and MSHA inspectors who were not thorough in their reviews. Family members of the victims who sat through a five-hour briefing on the MSHA report said they did not learn anything startlingly new, but it was good to have additional details confirming their suspicions of what led to the twin disasters. Colin King, a Salt Lake City attorney representing the heirs of the six trapped miners and two injured rescuers in a lawsuit against the mine's owners, operators and consultants, said the report "brings pain and progress to these families, a strange mixture of knowledge and additional questions. "This [MSHA] report confirms and underscores the allegations we made in our complaint," he said. "This clearly makes it known that these deaths and injuries were preventable." Operator Failures: The MSHA report tells for the first time how, just three days before the Aug. 6 collapse, the intense pressure on the coal pillars supporting the roof - and some 2,000 feet of mountaintop above - caused coal to explode from the pillars, a sign of instability. But neither that outburst, nor two others in March of 2007, were reported to MSHA. "These reporting failures were particularly critical because they deprived MSHA of the information it needed to properly assess and approve [the operator's] mining plans," the investigative team wrote. Investigators found that computer modeling of the mine plan by Agapito Associates, Inc., the engineering firm hired by the mine's co-owner, Murray Energy Corp., determined the mine would be unstable, but did not submit the findings to MSHA when the company sought approval to mine. Other models were badly flawed. And the mine operator further undermined the stability by violating the approved mine plan and cutting additional coal from the floor and thick barrier walls inside the mine. Investigators said the Aug. 16 fatalities could not have been prevented because there was no way to predict the incident, no amount of reinforcement could have protected the workers, and "the prospect of saving the entrapped miners' lives warranted the heroic efforts of the rescue workers." In a statement, Genwal Resources, which is co-owned by Murray Energy and Utah-based Intermountain Power Agency, said the report was disappointing. "Regrettably, this report does not have the benefit of all of the facts and appears to have been tainted in part by 10 months of relentless political clamoring to lay blame for these tragic events," the company said. Because of that, some experts did not participate in the investigation and their expertise was missing from the report, Genwal said. A spokeswoman for Agapito Associates said the company was reviewing the findings and could not comment. The MSHA report confirms earlier congressional investigations that determined the Crandall Canyon mine plan was dangerously unsafe and that MSHA failed to catch the flaws. The House committee asked the U.S. Attorney for Utah to review the matter for criminal charges. That screening is ongoing, said Melodie Rydalch, spokeswoman for federal prosecutor. Stickler said MSHA has already shared information with the U.S. Attorney, and will meet with prosecutors again as soon as a meeting can be scheduled. Agency Neglect: Despite the deficiencies in the design and operation of Crandall Canyon, the Labor Department report, released this7 evening, points to numerous junctures where MSHA should have caught the shortcomings, but failed in its oversight. The engineering data supporting the proposal to mine in Crandall Canyon was not adequately reviewed, and the agency did not seek technical advice from its own experts. Personnel in the Price field office were not allowed to offer input on the mining plan and, even though the March coal outbursts were not formally reported, MSHA officials were aware of the problems and did not follow up. Furthermore, measures to support the mine's roof were not adequately reviewed by inspectors when mining was under way, the report said. "MSHA's failure to adequately evaluate the roof control plans contributed to the occurrence of the August 6th accident," investigators wrote. The Labor report also criticizes MSHA's handling of the rescue operations, saying it lacked clear leadership, improperly allowed media and family members into the mine, did not establish the agency as the primary source of information and did not correct misinformation provided by Robert Murray, the mine's defiant co-owner. Rescue organizers also failed to do a formal risk assessment to determine whether exposing rescuers to dangerous conditions was warranted, investigators said. A Labor official said the department still is determining whether disciplinary actions will be taken. The report found no evidence MSHA was improperly influenced by Murray or other company officials, contradicting an earlier congressional report. Coal Mine Collapse: The collapse of the Crandall Canyon mine in the early morning hours of Aug. 6 came with such force that it registered as a 3.9 seismic event and the destruction spanned half a square mile. Rescue operations lurched along at an excruciatingly slow pace due to subsequent tremors and instability in the mine. Then, on the evening of Aug. 16, the mine buckled and heaved violently again, crumpling the steel supports and chain-link fencing installed to reinforce the entryways. It was a devastating setback that killed three rescuers and dashed any remaining hope of recovering the six trapped men. Two weeks later, the recovery efforts were called off. It was Utah's worst mining catastrophe since the Wilberg Mine fire in 1984 killed 27 people.
NUCLEAR SAFETY Our nation's nuclear power industry and its dance partner, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, have been waltzing around fire safety regulations for nearly 30 years. The NRC, it seems, is afraid of stepping on toes. The rules were enacted in 1980, five years after a potentially disastrous blaze at a generating station in Alabama exposed the vulnerability of power plants' automatic shutdown systems to fire. If the systems fail to function in an emergency, reactor cores can overheat and nuclear meltdowns can occur. Federal regulators prescribed a long list of curative measures - automatic fire-suppression systems, fire barriers, flame-resistant wrapping for electrical cables, etc. - to safeguard the shutdown systems. But the cost-conscious industry found portions of the pill hard to swallow. Instead of complying, some power plant operators have continually sought and received exemptions to the rules, or instituted NRC-approved "interim compensatory measures." The NRC's shortcomings were revealed in a report by the Government Accountability Office, which urged the agency to resolve "long-standing" fire safety issues. NRC officials said they will give the GAO's findings and conclusions "serious consideration." Kind of cavalier, don't you think? The NRC needs to make the industry put its atoms in order, now. This should be a burning issue, even in Utah, where a nuclear power plant has been proposed. Already, nearly 3 million Americans live within a 10-mile radius of a nuclear generating station, and 125 fires have been reported at nuclear power plants since 1995. Each was a calamity in the making. And, with the non-carbon industry on the cusp of a climate change-related renaissance - the NRC has received applications for 13 new commercial reactors since November and anticipates 14 more by the end of the year - the need for stringent regulations, aggressive enforcement and strict compliance will only increase. Nuclear power, due to the risk of catastrophic damage to the environment and public health, plus the high cost of plant construction that is passed along to consumers, is a poor substitute for other clean and green alternative energy sources. But it's going to happen. For it to happen safely, the NRC needs to be the industry's master, not its friend.
The head of the Mine Safety and Health Administration defended his agency Friday in the face of stinging criticism for MSHA's role in the deadly Crandall Canyon mine collapse, but conceded that MSHA missed warning signs that could have averted the disaster, which claimed the lives of nine men. "We had an opportunity to have not approved the [mining] plan and clearly we had a responsibility in that regard and we did not meet that responsibility," acting Assistant Labor Secretary Richard Stickler said in an interview. But others must share in the blame for the tragedy, he said, including the mine operator, Genwal Resources Inc., which is co-owned by Murray Energy and Utah-based Intermountain Power Agency, and its engineering firm, Agapito Associates Inc. "This thing started all the way back with the mine design," Stickler said. MSHA's accident investigation issued Thursday found the mine's engineering left it "primed for a massive pillar collapse," a situation aggravated when the operator mined areas that were off-limits and did not report three previous coal outbursts, where pressure bearing down caused coal to explode from the pillars supporting the mine, signaling serious stability problems. "So it was a combination of all these things together," Stickler said. A Labor Department investigation, released Thursday evening, painted a dismal picture of MSHA's handling of Crandall Canyon, from a shoddy review of the mining plan, to the failure to take charge of family and media briefings. Rep. George Miller, D-Calif.Â, chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, said the reports show MSHA failed to do its job. Earlier this year, the committee studied the disaster and held hearings before issuing its own statement on how it happened and why. "The agency's track record . . . leads me to believe that MSHA is not up to the task of protecting the health and safety of our nation's miners," Miller said Thursday. "We must ensure that another tragedy such as this never happens again." Mike Dalpiaz, international vice president for the United Mine Workers of America said that, as much as anyone, MSHA failed to do its job. "They approved it all. They gave the nod to everything they said [in the report] was terrible," he said. "So, hell yeah. They deserve the blame. They could have stopped that thing in its tracks." However, Stickler took issue with several criticisms leveled by the Labor Department's investigators. Specifically, he said: * The supervisor in charge of the review of the Crandall Canyon mine plan has 30 years experience in Western mining. He did not know how to use computer models to test the mine's stability; * There was a clear chain of command for the post-accident rescue efforts; * It would have been inappropriate for him to refute misstatements mine co-owner Bob Murray made during media briefings until all the facts were clear, or to debate with him publicly; * Inspectors did all of the required inspections of the mine, but their work was hampered because the mine operator concealed the three coal outbursts in March and August; * And, although MSHA did not do a formal risk assessment during the rescue, supervisors were constantly taking risk into account. "I've never been aware of a formal risk assessment," Stickler said. "When you're in the middle of an emergency . . . like at Crandall Canyon, you have no facilities. The sheriff brought us a tent. We're in the rain part of the time. And you're going to say, 'OK, let's huddle up and have a formal risk assessment?' '' All told, MSHA agreed to take action on many of the 81 recommendations the Labor report made. For example, it now requires a more rigorous review and analysis by technical experts of plans to mine in deep, bump-prone areas, and has mandated thorough, monthly inspections of every mine in the country doing retreat mining.
MINING MSHA: DYSFUNCTIONAL AGENCY Richard Stickler, the embattled boss of the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration, says he is looking forward to retiring. He shouldn't waste another minute. He should resign, today. While the agency has made some recent strides - it's adding inspectors, conducting more rigorous reviews, issuing more citations and leveling larger fines against renegade mining companies - a Labor Department investigation of MSHA's role in the Crandall Canyon coal mine catastrophes is damning. Released last week, the report makes 81 recommendations to correct deficiencies deemed complicit in the accident that killed six miners in the Emery County deep mine last Aug. 6, and a botched rescue attempt that claimed three more lives on Aug. 16. And it mimics critical reports issued by a pair of congressional committees and Labor's inspector general. Stickler, a former coal mine manager and industry insider, sets the tone for the regulatory agency and must shoulder the brunt of the blame. Stickler is a recess appointment and has served nearly two years without congressional approval. The concern in the Senate was that MSHA, under Stickler, would coddle coal companies, that production and profits would take priority over health and safety. Regarding MSHA's failure to flag faulty mining plans at Crandall Canyon, Stickler said the agency put too much trust in the mine's engineering firm, which had performed capably in the past. But plans need to be critically reviewed no matter who submits them. That's unacceptable. The nation's mine workers need a mine safety agency that is proactive, not reactive. One that anticipates problems and takes steps to solve them before accidents occur.
Return to Top of Page COAL-FIRED POWER PLANT WILL BE A referendum that would allow Sevier County residents to vote on construction of a coal-fired power plant will be on the November ballot, thanks to agreement Monday of the County Commission to take no action on it. That allowed the measure to go to the public vote without the commission actually endorsing it, said Commission Chairman Gary Mason. "I have no trouble [with] it going to the voters," Mason said. "That takes the monkey off my back." The commission validated the citizens' referendum petition, which had more than the necessary number of signatures, Mason said. The measure would amend the county's conditional-use permit ordinance to require voter approval prior to issuing such permits for coal-fired power plants. It also would revoke any conditional-use permit issued - specific language likely to further snarl the long-simmering dispute, because the county is now considering Sevier Power's permit request as a planned unit development request, said County Attorney Dale Eyre. The terminology switch, said coal-plant opponent Elaine Bonavita, was "a smooth move." Everybody thought the commission's decision was a victory, said Bonavita, chairwoman of the Right-to-Vote Committee. "But I must tell you this: It was a victory clouded in deceit," she said. " 'Conditional-use permit' is on the ballot, and if they change the wording, they've pulled a fast one," she said. "We will go to litigation." A planned unit development typically is a residential project that features relatively dense clusters of houses, which are usually surrounded by areas of commonly owned open space maintained by a nonprofit community association. A conditional-use permit is a variance to allow a project otherwise prevented by zoning. Mason said the commission always considered the Sevier Power request to be for a PUD. Right-to-Vote Committee attorney Jeff Owens says that's not so. The county previously changed its zoning to allow the power plant. A lawsuit on that decision is pending, Eyre said. There also is the matter of SB53, a possibly unconstitutional law passed during this year's legislative session, which bans voter initiatives on land-use ordinances. "SB53 will always be out there," Eyre said. "But unless someone approaches a court or maybe the attorney general's office, we're not going to take any action to stop the ballot." No matter which way the November vote goes, Eyre said, he expects to go to court. Sevier Power co-owner Bruce Taylor sounded an ominous note about the referendum after the commission meeting. "We do not believe it will get to the vote," he said. History of the Sevier Power Project
DEAL CREATES MULTINATIONAL COLUMBUS, Ohio - The company will be named Cliffs Natural Resources, and own nine iron ore facilities and more than 60 coal mines in North and South America and Australia. A global consolidation of the commodities industry has begun to accelerate. The Cleveland-Cliffs deal comes on the heels of major acquisitions by Luxembourg-based ArcelorMittal, the world's largest steelmaker, and Korean steel giant Posco. Cleveland-Cliffs Chief Executive Joseph Carrabba said the deal shows that U.S. steel is still robust compared with growing international steelmakers. ''It was an old line industry written off as dead that has emerged and been spectacularly successful,'' Carrabba said. The boards of both Cleveland-Cliffs and Alpha Natural Resources Inc. approved the deal, in which Alpha shareholders will receive 0.95 Cleveland-Cliffs shares ($105.89 based on the stock's Tuesday closing price) and $22.23 in cash for each share held. Cleveland-Cliffs shares tumbled nearly 7 percent, or $7.44, to $104.02. The stock, however, is still nearly four times above its 52-week low of $28.20. Alpha's stock's jumped 10.5 percent, or $10.01, to $104.93. Its 52-week low is $15.92. Based on Cleveland-Cliff's closing price Tuesday, Alpha shareholders will receive $128.12 per share, a 35 percent premium to Alpha's Tuesday close of $94.92. Based on the company's 70.3 million outstanding shares at April 23, the deal is valued at $9.01 billion. In a statement, the companies valued the transaction at $10 billion. The transaction is expected to close by the end of the year.
SHARES OF UTAH FIRM JUMP 22% AS Shares of Headwaters Inc., a South Jordan-based alternative fuels company, jumped as much as 22 percent after third-quarter profit beat analysts' estimates on revenue from building products and clean coal sales. Net income for the three months that ended June 30 dropped to $13.7 million, or 31 cents a share, from $46.4 million, or 98 cents, a year earlier. Seven analysts, on average, predicted profit of 24 cents a share in a Bloomberg survey. Headwaters shares closed 25 percent higher Tuesday on the New York Stock Exchange, finishing up $2.53 to $12.59. Sales fell 31 percent, to $230.5 million, on lower energy revenue after the expiration of Headwater's section 45K energy tax credit, an incentive for companies to develop alternative fuels. Revenue from building products dropped 17 percent. The rise in coal prices and production rates from a year earlier led to Headwaters doubling third-quarter clean coal sales to $13.1 million from the second period, the company said. Clean coal sales per ton increased by 20 percent sequentially. Headwaters supplies chemicals to companies that process waste coal into synthetic fuel for power plants. It also operates a construction materials unit, a small ethanol plant and sells coal-combustion materials such as fly ash.
TECK COMINCO BUYS FORDING CANADIAN A global consolidation of the coal industry is shifting into overdrive. Mining giant Teck Cominco said Tuesday it will buy up all of the Fording Canadian Coal Trust for close to $14 billion in cash and stock. The deal is just the latest in a growing string of giant acquisitions centered on coking coal, a key raw material for certain steel mills. Coking coal prices have gained more than 50 percent since April 1 to $250 a ton or more, driven by tight supplies and demand from China, India, Russia, Europe and Brazil. When combined with the soaring cost of scrap metal, iron ore and other raw materials, mining interests such as Teck Cominco and international steel companies have begun snapping up coal producers in the U.S. and overseas.
ENERGY
UTAH SENATORS SLAM CONGRESSIONAL OIL-SHALE DEVELOPMENT MORATORIUM A congressional moratorium on oil shale leasing and development hurts an established industry's efforts to find investors and imperils the nation's hopes for energy independence, Utah's senators said Tuesday. Sens. Orrin Hatch and Bob Bennett, supporting a Bush administration proposal to enhance U.S. fossil-fuel energy production, said during a news conference at the Utah Capitol that the moratorium imposed on the Bureau of Land Management means no one knows what the rules will be for oil shale and tar sands development. And that, in turn, means too few investors in what would be a multibillion-dollar industry that would enhance the nation's energy security, Bennett said. "It is irresponsible, it is malicious, for us not to proceed to open it up," he said. Bush tied his push for more fossil-fuel drilling and development to high gas prices. Hatch, however, said that while the companies hoping to develop oil shale "are our nation's energy Minutemen," they cannot bring down the price of oil today. "But they are going to do what it takes today to get our nation this energy in the future," Hatch said. The BLM, acting according to requirements in the Energy Policy Act of 2005, has launched a broad oil shale and tar sand environmental analysis. Most of the oil shale is in western Colorado; all of the tar sands are in eastern Utah. But last year, Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo., managed to attach a rider to the appropriations bill that set aside the BLM's leasing program for a year to figure out how extensive leasing and development would affect the environment and the communities in the oil shale and tar sands region. Attempts to overturn the moratorium have been unsuccessful. Salazar and Rep. Mark Udall, D-Colo., hope to extend the moratorium another year in hopes the resource can be developed with economic stability and environmental protection in mind. During the news conference Tuesday, however, industry representatives said they are ready to go, and Lt. Gov. Gary Herbert dismissed those who say the unconventional energy can't be developed sensitively. Oil Shale Exploration Co., the only Utah firm to receive one of six research, development and demonstration leases from the BLM, announced a partnership with Petrobras of Brazil and Mitsui & Co. Ltd. of Japan to study the feasibility of Petrobras' Petrosix technology on Utah oil shale on 40,000 acres of private land in eastern Utah. OSEC's federal lease so far has allowed it to export waste rock left over from the 1980s shale bust to Alberta, Canada, for testing a different process. Both methods, however, use retorts to roast kerogen - the waxy hydrocarbon that hasn't undergone the geologic heat and pressure necessary to create petroleum - out of the shale. Amy Hansen, an OSEC spokeswoman, said the 300 tons of shale shipped to Canada yielded 9,000 gallons of kerogen, which can be further refined into kerosene or diesel fuel. Last year, a RAND Corp. study estimated that the region held the equivalent of 2 trillion barrels of oil, with 800 billion barrels recoverable. That is more than triple the proven oil reserves of Saudi Arabia. With current U.S. consumption of oil at 21 million barrels per day, the Rocky Mountain resource could last 400 years, the RAND study concluded. Oil shale development requires huge amounts of water and electricity and emits tremendous amounts of carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas emission most responsible for global climate disruption. The Utah Division of Water Resources has said Utah's share of the Colorado River could soon be fully allocated, so where the water would come from is unclear. Questions also remain regarding what oil-shale extraction would do to surface and groundwater quality. In March, 26 conservation groups wrote a letter to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management claiming the Bush administration's rush to develop oil shale and tar sands failed to include adequate public information about potential environmental, social and economic harm. The letter called on the BLM to focus on energy efficiency and renewable energy. Herbert said developing Utah's oil shale and tar sands would "unleash the power of the private sector." "We can do it reasonably in an environmentally sensitive way," Herbert said. Anyone disputing that "is not thinking clearly," he said. Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr., in Jackson, Wyo., for the Western Governors Association annual conference, supports oil shale and tar sands development. But he also joined other Western governors, including those who favor the moratorium, in addressing how to meet future energy demands in a clean manner that won't aggravate climate change.
KICKING THE HABIT A junkie gets desperate when his junk runs out. He's got to have more, and he'll do just about anything in order to keep feeding his habit. America is like that about oil. As our supply from foreign sources gets more expensive and rumors float around that those dealers are running out, we're panicking, ready to trade our natural resources, even the future of the planet, for one more hit. And Utah Sens. Orrin Hatch and Bob Bennett are backing the deal, right behind President Bush. They want to fast-track the development of oil from shale and tar sands before the effects of the processes on the environment can be fully evaluated. Because oil shale development uses huge amounts of water and creates tons of carbon dioxide, that fast-tracking could threaten the eastern Utah and western Colorado landscapes and Utah's precious water resources and hasten the dangers of climate change caused by greenhouse-gas emissions. Fortunately, other Western lawmakers are not in such a headlong rush to sell out. Colorado Democratic Rep. Mark Udall and Sen. Ken Salazar slowed the frenzy toward oil shale and tar sands development by convincing Congress to approve a moratorium on Bureau of Land Management rule-making needed before permits are issued. Hatch and Bennett are demanding that the delay be rescinded to give the energy industry whatever it needs to put oil from shale and tar sands on the market as soon as possible, while admitting that oil from shale could not possibly be available in time to provide relief from today's high fuel prices. On the other hand, Bush has no compunction about tying the fast-tracking of oil shale and tar sands development to pump prices, just as he saw the value in tying the 9/11 attack to Saddam Hussein, although he had nothing to do with it. But the energy industry is not ready with technology to make oil shale development feasible. It is experimenting with a variety of processes, and the moratorium does not affect those experiments. A year's wait to determine the potential benefits versus the costs of oil shale development and to refine better technology is reasonable. In the meantime, and for the forseeable future, it would be more in our interest to beat our addiction with energy alternatives and conservation. It's time we kicked the oil habit for good.
ENERGY POLICY They didn't call it the "Our Goose is Cooked" report, but they could have. It projects that liquid petroleum will remain the world's dominant energy source through at least 2030, that prices for oil will continue to rise and that world carbon dioxide emissions will increase by 51 percent by that date. That's if current laws and policies remain in place. Our conclusion: Current laws and policies should not remain in place. The new president and Congress need to develop a national energy policy next year that works with private market forces to cut our dependence on fossil fuels and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The report, "International Energy Outlook 2008," came from the Energy Information Administration, which compiles statistics for the U.S. government. It is sobering reading. But it also gives us hope because we believe that rising oil prices will provide the economic incentives to begin weening the United States from fossil fuels. It is the burning of those fuels that fouls our air and creates the greenhouse gases, particularly carbon dioxide, that contribute to global warming. We understand that switching to alternative forms of energy cannot work if it does not make economic sense. Energy prices affect the cost of most other goods and services, and the United States must remain competitive in the world market. But as the demand for liquid fuels burgeons in the developing world - primarily India and China - driving prices upward, forms of alternative energy should become economically feasible. According to the report, the low-hanging fruit for fossil fuel reduction is electricity generation, where existing technologies with no or low emissions could replace coal-fired plants. But that won't happen without a system to apply a cost to emitters of carbon dioxide. Without a carbon tax or some other method, India, China and the United States, all of which are rich in coal resources, will continue to burn them. The developing world already has surpassed the industrial nations as carbon dioxide emitters, and without change, the Indias and Chinas of the world will produce 72 percent more emissions than the developed world by 2030. That is why the United States must lead by example and treaty. Otherwise, all the world's geese will be cooked, in more ways than one. WE'VE SEEN THIS HEEDLESS RUSH TO OIL SHALE BEFORE, To hear President Bush touting Western oil shale as the answer to $4 per gallon gasoline, as he did again this week in the Rose Garden, you would think it was 1908 . . . or 1920 . . . or 1945 . . . or 1974. Every couple of decades over the past century, the immense reserves of the oily rock under Colorado and Utah re-emerge as the great hope for our energy future. Bush and his fellow oil shale boosters claim that if only Western communities would stand aside, energy companies could begin extracting more than 500 billion barrels of recoverable oil from domestic shale deposits. If only the federal government immediately offered even more public lands for development, the technology to extract oil from rock would suddenly ripen, oil supplies would rise and gas prices would fall. If only ... Since the 19th century, we in the West have been trying to extract oil from the vast oil shale riches that lie under our feet. It is no easy task, and past efforts have failed miserably. Commercial oil shale development would require not only immense financial investments but also an undetermined quantity of (scarce) water from the Colorado River basin and the construction of several multibillion-dollar power plants. Sometimes it seems that we are getting close to overcoming these barriers. But each time we near a boom, we bust. The last bust, the infamous ''Black Sunday'' of 1982, left Western communities holding the bill long after the speculators, Beltway boosters and energy companies had taken off. This time, though, the technologies that companies such as Shell Oil are developing are far more promising. Thanks in part to a research and development program that Congress created in 2005, energy companies are starting to devise a way to heat the rock that holds the oil and force the oil up and out of the ground. Still, that oil would not come easily. It would take around one ton of rock to produce enough fuel to last the average car two weeks. Furthermore, energy companies are still years away - 2015 at the earliest - from knowing whether this technology can cost-effectively produce oil on a commercial scale. To reach the 2015 goal, we must avoid the pitfalls that have trapped us in the past: the speculation and hype, the shortage of water and power, and the failure to plan for environmental and social impacts. Unless development proceeds in a thoughtful and responsible manner, we risk another massive bust. Unfortunately, the administration's approach carries none of the Western wisdom acquired over the past century. In a frenzied attempt to move a failed agenda in its last days, the Bureau of Land Management is trying to organize a fire sale of commercial oil shale leases on public land. This sale would be a tragic case of putting the cart before the horse. How is a federal agency to establish regulations, lease land and then manage oil shale development without knowing whether the technology is commercially viable, how much water the technology would need (no small question in the arid West), how much carbon would be emitted, the source of the electricity to power the projects, or what the effects would be on Western landscapes? The governors of Wyoming and Colorado, and communities and editorial boards across the West, agree that the administration's headlong rush is a terrible idea. Even energy companies, including Chevron, have said we need to proceed more cautiously on oil shale. With more than 30,000 acres of public land at their disposal to conduct research, development and demonstration projects (in addition to 200,000 undeveloped acres of private oil shale lands they own in Colorado and Utah), they already have more land than they can develop in the foreseeable future. So why is the president hurrying to sell leases for commercial oil shale development in the West's great landscapes? A fire sale will not lower gas prices. It will not accelerate the development of commercial oil shale technologies. My family has farmed and ranched in Colorado for five generations. We have seen this speculative spirit before. It is the same spirit that sweeps through gold, silver and uranium markets in the run-up to devastating busts. It is the same spirit that drives some of the West's worst water and land grabs. So to the boosters who think they have found the answer to our energy crisis, I say: We welcome you to our quest to develop oil shale on a commercial scale. But first let's put the horse in front of the cart and start pulling in the same direction. A reckless approach that heightens the risk of an oil shale bust would only set us back. * Ken Salazar is a Democratic U.S. senator from Colorado.
DON'T IGNORE THE ENERGY SOURCES Last month, Senate Republicans unveiled the Gas Price Reduction Act of 2008, a common-sense plan to help lower the prices at the pump. We are co-sponsors of this bill and support its guiding principle that Americans should "find more and use less" energy. The plan also provides Utah with an opportunity to be a world leader in energy production. Many Utahns have asked us why the price of gasoline is so high and what we can do to fix it. The world's current trend of oil production and consumption is similar to families that spend more than they make each month. They can get by as long as there are resources left in the bank, but the more they draw down the available resources, the less of a cushion they have in the future. For years, we've been using more oil than we've been producing and it's finally caught up with us. The United States needs a course correction to provide stability to our oil markets. Congress recently acted on the "use less" side of the equation by increasing CAFE mileage standards for vehicles and mandating various efficiency requirements. The Gas Price Reduction Act continues our conservation efforts by promoting plug-in electric vehicles, which on an average driving day would use little or no petroleum. However, efficiency alone cannot stabilize our energy markets because the United States is spending $700 billion per year on foreign oil. We must find more oil in our country. Fortunately, we don't have to look far to find it. Utah, Colorado and Wyoming have more than 800 billion barrels of recoverable oil locked up in oil shale, a rock that produces oil when heated. This is more than three times the amount of Saudi Arabia's oil reserves. Utah also has 14 billion to 15 billion barrels of oil in tar sands. Developing these resources would help increase the cushion in the supply that we need to stabilize the gasoline market. Oil shale development is not a new idea; other nations have produced oil from oil shale for decades. We have, however, improved the technology to significantly reduce the environmental impacts. A pilot project in Utah is already using this new technology on state land and could start producing oil later this year. Oil shale on federal land, however, is specifically locked up by the Democratic Congress. It is hypocritical for some members of Congress to prohibit Americans from developing American resources while simultaneously asking the president to beg Saudi Arabia for more oil. The Gas Price Reduction Act would lift the moratorium that prohibits the government from issuing rules and regulations for commercial oil shale leases. Companies will not want to invest billions in an industry where the rules of the game are not defined. We support and welcome all forms of energy - renewable and non-renewable. We have each voted for solar, wind, hydro, geothermal, nuclear, coal, natural gas, petroleum and other sources of energy. All sources, along with conservation, are important in the overall goal of reducing our dependence on foreign oil. The Gas Price Reduction Act goes a step further by allowing Utahns to harness the abundant resources that are at our fingertips. There is not a simple solution to our multifaceted energy problem. Conservation is critical, but it is only one piece of the puzzle, and we can't conserve our way out of this energy crisis. We must also address the supply side of the energy equation and develop more domestic oil. Americans are looking for long-term solutions to our energy crisis, and it's irresponsible to turn a blind eye to the resources available in Utah's own backyard. * Sens. Orrin Hatch and Bob Bennett, both Republicans, represent Utah in the U.S. Senate.
A ray of sunshine. Winds of change. Our nation's state governors, while undecided about the role nuclear power and coal should play in our energy future, have issued a ringing endorsement of solar and wind power that Washington would be wise to heed. The National Governors Association is urging Congress to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, combat climate change and spur economic growth by renewing tax credits for renewable energy development for the next five years. A production tax credit for wind and solar power plants, and investment tax credits for homeowners and businesses that install solar power systems, expire at the end of the year. Congress has debated a long-term extension since last December, but can't agree on how to offset the cost under "pay-as-you-go" budget rules. Failure to act would take the wind out the rapidly expanding wind-power industry and cast a cloud over a solar-power industry that's just starting to heat up. Renewable energy industries, until they achieve scale, need a sustained government commitment to assure a return on investments in today's volatile energy market. In the past, on-again-off-again tax credits have resulted in boom-and-bust cycles. But the current three-year tax credit program, which offers 1.9 cents for each kilowatt hour of electricity produced for the next decade, has resulted in a clean-and-green power surge. In 2007, wind-power capacity increased by 45 percent and added 5,244 megawatts of electricity to the grid, the equivalent of about 20 new coal-fired plants like the one planned near Sigurd in Sevier County. Wind power accounted for nearly a third of the nation's new production capacity last year. While solar power plants registered only a modest gain - 110 megawatts of new production capacity last year - it represents a 43 percent increase, a sign of an industry gaining steam. Perhaps more importantly, 18 new wind farms have been proposed this year and 22 solar power plant projects are on the drawing board, proof positive that sustained tax credits work, and that renewable energy sources, with some assistance, can replace fossil fuels and help take the pressure off a planet in peril. But if Congress ignores the governors' plea for a multiyear tax-credit program, those projects will be jeopardized, and that momentum will be lost.
CANADIAN CRUDE OIL Two major energy companies will spend $7 billion to nearly double the amount of crude flowing through a pipeline from Canada's tar sands to the U.S. Gulf Coast, highlighting intense demand for crude that was once too expensive to pull from the ground and process. Alberta, Canada-based TransCanada Corp. and Houston-based ConocoPhillips Co. said Wednesday they will add 500,000 barrels of daily capacity to the Keystone Pipeline, a 1,980-mile project connecting Hardisty, Alberta, with a delivery point near existing terminals in Port Arthur, Texas. Unlike the benchmark light, sweet crude, oil extracted from the Alberta oil sands of northern Canada is a dirty, bottom-of-the-barrel substance that is more difficult to refine into gasoline and diesel. U.S. refiners have been converting plants to handle the thicker crude.
ENERGY DEVELOPMENT THREATENS The Salt Lake Tribune editorial, "Cost of drilling: Wells threaten tourism, hunting and natural beauty," paints a picture of what could become of Utah's hunting, fishing and recreation traditions that depend on healthy lands. Unfortunately, The Tribune didn't mention that we've already begun to see these impacts. A May 6 press release by the Utah Department of Natural Resources revealed that natural gas producers set a new all-time record in 2007, surpassing the previous record set in 2006 by 29 million cubic feet of natural gas. Oil producers are not far behind, setting a decade-high recovery of 20 million barrels. Gil Hunt, executive director for the Utah Division of Oil, Gas and Mining, put it in simple terms: "This was accomplished by drilling record numbers of wells in the state the last few years." This is just the tip of the iceberg. Right now in Utah, six national forests and six Bureau of Land Management field offices are in the process of determining where and under what conditions oil and gas drilling will be allowed on more than 17 million acres of public land. Many of these lands are renowned hunting and angling destinations: the Henry Mountains, Paunsaugunt Plateau, Strawberry Reservoir, Diamond Fork, Green River and Book Cliffs are all places that have either been leased, are being developed or could be made available for leasing in the future. Oil and natural gas are valuable resources that contribute to Utah's economy and help to heat our houses and fuel our cars. But now is the time for Utah's sportsmen to ensure that, as this boom continues, the fish, wildlife and public lands we depend on get a fair shake in the planning and the drilling to come. In short, we need to make sure the needs of fish and wildlife are met as drilling continues in known oil patches and comes to places that have never seen the drill bit. Sportsmen have been involved with local public lands oil and gas issues such as leasing at Strawberry Reservoir, but until there are national policies in place that call for balance and effectively meet the needs of fish and wildlife, we will continue to see our hunting and fishing heritage and fish and wildlife needlessly sacrificed. A 2002 Utah Bureau of Land Management instruction memo clearly articulates the emphasis on drilling, stating that officials in the state need "to ensure that existing staff understand that when an oil and gas lease parcel or when an APD (Application Permit to Drill) comes in the door, that this work is their No. 1 priority." To address the need for a change of policies at the national level, the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, Trout Unlimited, Mule DeerFoundation and the National Wildlife Federation are spearheading Sportsmen for Responsible Energy Development, a campaign built on the support of local rod and gun clubs and businesses that depend on quality hunting and fishing, to push for balanced oil and gas management. Together, we are working to change our federal agencies' focus so when an application to drill or lease comes in the door, the Forest Service and BLM know what the needs of fish and wildlife are and have comprehensive plans and policies in place to balance these needs with the push for more drilling. Sportsmen have a long and proud heritage of conservation in Utah. With 17 million acres of public land at stake in Utah alone, now is the time to make sure we get this boom right and ensure the values above the ground are conserved as the values below the ground are developed.
ENERGY SOURCES ABOUND There has been an inordinate amount of media attention focused on drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as the answer to our energy woes. It isn't just ANWR. The real issue is whether America is taking advantage of every energy resource we have - shale oil, liquefied coal, natural gas, gas from coal, off-shore drilling, nuclear power, solar, wind, bio-fuels and electric battery powered cars. The issue has degraded into partisan, election-season bickering. This is our national security. If our politicians rallied around a bipartisan Manhattan Project devoted to freeing us from energy dependence, we would rule our economic destiny for many decades into the future.
ENERGY CRISIS HAS U OF U BUILDING After a Pennsylvania nuclear power plant suffered a partial core meltdown in 1979, university nuclear engineering programs melted away along with prospects of an industry that once promised electrical power too cheap to meter. The University of Utah's program shrunk, but remained one of the nation's 29 programs to survive Three Mile Island and the resulting collapse in nuke construction. The U. is rebuilding its nuclear program now that the nation, faced with the twin challenges of high energy prices and climate change, is becoming receptive to splitting atoms for power. For the first time, the College of Engineering will offer a nuclear minor after U. undergraduates petitioned college brass last year. "Nuclear is the cleanest way to generate electrical power and the United States does have the technology and the uranium ore. There's no reason not to be generating more of our power with nuclear plants," said dean Rich Brown. The college on Monday announced the establishment of a presidential chair in nuclear engineering thanks to a $1.5 million gift from the EnergySolutions Foundation, the educational arm of the Utah-based firm leading America's nuclear renaissance, which has drawn fire for its proposal to dispose of Italian nuclear waste in Utah. "We are pleased with this endowment because it is acting as a catalyst to accomplish the growth we want," Brown said. "We will use the chair to recruit a national figure in nuclear engineering. There's a great deal of competition for people with this kind of expertise. We are not the only college that thinks it's time to invest in nuclear engineering." Since 2001, the U. has graduated four doctorates and nine masters in nuclear engineering. Ten of the U.'s 800 engineering graduate students are going nuclear. Nationally, U.S. universities produced 402 nuclear engineers - hardly enough to satisfy the coming demand, according to EnergySolutions spokesman John Ward. "There's going to be a serious shortage of qualified nuclear professionals no matter what," Ward said. "The work force that built up the reactor fleet in the 1970s is entering retirement age. We need to find people to replace them and for the 104 operating reactors we have today. On top of that there is interest in building more plants." The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is bracing for an onslaught of applications for new reactors and the agency itself is looking to hire 350 engineers.
GREEN RIVER 'PREFERRED' NUKE PLANT SITE; Proponents of Utah's first nuclear power plant have their eyes on a new industrial park near Green River as a possible reactor site. Reed Searle, strategic relations director for Transition Power Development, called the industrial park near the intersection of Route 6 and Interstate 70 "the preferred location" last week. On Tuesday, Transition's chief executive officer, Aaron Tilton, balked at the term "preferred" but confirmed the new industrial park is a strong candidate for reactors that could generate 3,000 megawatts of electricity. "What is preferred about it is that there is a lot of local support," said Tilton, a Republican legislator representing Springville who added that up to three more Utah locations are being reviewed. Transition has been working with Emery County officials on the paperwork needed to vet out a nuclear reactor site. They have been granted access to the site by the School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration, which currently owns most of the industrial park land, for preliminary air and archeological testing. A formal application to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is not due until 2010. Federal nuclear regulators received a "place holder" letter for the ''Blue Castle Generation Project'' in April that promised a reactor license application in two years. Blue Castle Butte is on the southern edge of the Book Cliffs, east of Route 6, north of Interstate 70 and the town of Green River, and west of the take out for Desolation Canyon river trips. Emery County already has signed up Mancos Resources, the U.S. subsidiary of British Columbia-based Blue Rock Resources Ltd., to build a $100 million uranium mill at the 3,300-acre industrial park. "It's not the only place" under consideration, said Tilton, "but one that would meet the licensing criteria - we think." Mary Willmarth and her husband, Bill, attended a meeting in Green River last week that was hosted by the Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah. While not opposed to nuclear power, she thinks more needs to be done to deal with high-level reactor waste for which the United States has no disposal. "I'm still on the fence," she said. "My problem is still waste disposal." Greg Vetere, a lifelong Green River resident and melon farmer, also has no problem with nuclear power but does question the industrial park site. He said nuclear facilities should be built downwind of Green River city, not upwind. "Why put something [contaminants] into the atmosphere or take a chance of it settling down into the valley," he said. Whatever the concern, John Urgo, HEAL Utah's outreach director, says it is critical that the community get involved in the process. "Once Emery County decides to sell and rezone land for Tilton's nuclear reactors, the process moves from the county's control into the hands of the federal government," he said. "If Green River wants a voice, now is the time to speak up." While talk about the plant has generated lots of excitement about revitalizing economic development in Green River, any nuclear plant has a long way to go. Even under the NRC's expedited licensing process, the minimum time for developing a nuclear plant is about five years, and the cost of paying for one - estimated to be between $5 billion and $15 billion - make its future uncertain.
A FULL PORTFOLIO OF RESOURCES Rocky Mountain Power and Questar Gas rate increase requests before the Utah Public Service Commission would add about $20 a month to the typical customer's energy bills. Consumers are struggling to pay for fuel at the gas pump and facing increased costs to keep the lights on and warm and cool their homes. The economic ripple effect of higher energy costs today could become a destructive wave in the months and years ahead. The U.S. electric utility sectors in Utah - Rocky Mountain Power, city-owned electric departments and rural electric cooperatives - face the double-whammy of building new resources to cover potential shortages of electricity while simultaneously being asked to add and substitute renewable resources that are more costly than conventional coal-fired generation. The critical need for new types of resources is real and looming. Demand for electricity, however, is rapidly outstripping supply. The North America Electric Reliability Corporation, which oversees reliability of the U.S. bulk power system, is projecting the Western United States will drop below reliable levels, risking blackouts in 2009 because of the lack of available generation. Undermining reliability efforts, however, the global warming movement has stopped or delayed construction of almost every new coal-fired power plant. Many believe renewable energy is the singular solution to our energy problems. The reality is that even greatly accelerated development of wind, solar and geothermal sources will barely keep pace with the need for new resources in the next 10 years and will still contribute less than 5 percent of our electricity needs. Others advocate natural gas as the solution. Widespread reliance on natural gas-fired power plants for new base load generation and to replace existing coal-fired generation has two huge downsides for the United States. Since the United States consumes more natural gas than it produces, further increasing natural gas reliance will both raise prices and our dependence on those same exporting countries that produce much of the world's supply of oil, Russia and Middle Eastern nations, threatening our economic and military security. The only viable solution is to use a full portfolio of resources, including efficiency and viable renewables. Absent more coal-fired power plants and nuclear generation, however, we will not only find ourselves in an economy with spiraling prices, but major industries will flee U.S. borders for countries where electricity is available and affordable, and where foreign, unregulated utilities can spew emissions into the atmosphere further compounding global air pollution issues. We will also adversely impact our own ability to fund research on technologies that in the next 50 years could revolutionize how we produce and use energy. I believe in the coming years we'll find that California and Florida won't be swallowed up by the oceans as predicted by Al Gore, and cycles of climate heating and cooling on Earth will have continued as they have for millennia. If our economy is vibrant, we will also find the United States will have made progress to reduce pollutants in the atmosphere as we have for decades, and we will have discovered better ways to produce and use energy. If we choose to eliminate coal and nuclear from our power mix, those who proclaim impending cataclysmic events because of CO2 in the atmosphere, and who blame Utahns and Americans in general for overconsuming, will have had their day, probably just not in the way they imagined. People simply won't be able to afford much of anything, including newspapers. * Michael Peterson is executive director of the Utah Rural Electric Association.
NUCLEAR REACTION Emery County and Green River officials need to look long and hard before they leap into the nuclear age. Transition Power Development has identified a proposed industrial park outside Green River, a city that bills itself as "Utah's Desert Treasure" and panders to tourists, as its preferred site for a nuclear power plant. And local officials, along with many residents, are reportedly excited about the prospect of the high-paying jobs and economic benefits a nuke plant would bring. But before the county signs off on zoning changes necessary to move the project along, while it still has control over its future, officials need to carefully weigh the pros against a cornucopia of cons. Nuclear power plants require hundreds of employees, from college-educated technicians and engineers to clerical, custodial and security workers. No doubt, the plant and its payroll would be a boon for business, creating spinoff effects that would ripple through the local economy. But at what cost for a community willing to sell itself down the river for quick economic gain? There hasn't been a new nuclear power plant built in this country for decades, and for good reasons. The near melt-down of a reactor at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania shocked the nation to its senses. A disaster could kill thousands of people and render tens of thousands of acres uninhabitable. Plus, if you get a nuclear power plant, you also get a nuclear waste dump. Because the nation lacks a permanent storage facility, highly lethal spent fuel must be stored on-site. And don't forget the security concerns. Nuclear power plants, due to the threat of catastrophic damage, are potential terrorist targets. Fuel could fall into the wrong hands. A nuclear power plant, visible for miles and drawing scarce water from the famed Green River, would also be at odds with the region's burgeoning outdoor recreation industry. When tourists see nuclear reactors, skulls and crossbones come to mind, and the region renowned for its river rafting, rock art and scenery is diminished in the eyes of visitors. Utah and the atom go way back. Uranium booms and busts. Deadly fallout from atomic testing in the Nevada desert. Battles won and lost against the nuclear waste industry. The pros have never outweighed the cons. A nuclear power plant in Emery County would be no exception.
GORE: CARBON-FREE ELECTRICITY WASHINGTON (AP) -- Former Vice President Al Gore called for a "man on the moon" effort to switch all of the nation's electricity production to wind, solar and other carbon-free sources within 10 years, a goal that he said would solve global warming as well as economic and natural security crises caused by dependence on fossil fuels. "The answer is to end our reliance on carbon-based fuels," Gore told a packed auditorium in Washington's historic Constitution Hall. "When you connect the dots, it turns out that the real solutions to the climate crisis are the very same measures needed to renew our economy and escape the trap of ever-rising energy prices." Gore compared the challenge to establishing Social Security and the Interstate highway system, as well as landing a man on the moon - all successes that took more than a single presidency to accomplish and required members of both political parties to overcome their partisanship. The Alliance for Climate Protection, a bipartisan group Gore leads, put the 30-year cost of his plan - both government and private - at $1.5 trillion to $3 trillion. To speed up the transition to new energy sources, Gore said the single most important policy change would be to "tax what we burn, not what we earn," advocating a tax on carbon dioxide pollution. Gore's proposal would represent a significant shift in where the U.S. gets its power. In 2005, coal supplied slightly more than half the nation's 3.7 billion kilowatt hours of electricity. Nuclear power accounted for 21 percent, natural gas 15 percent and renewable sources, including wind and solar, about 8.6 percent. Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize for sounding the alarm about climate change and his documentary on the issue, "An Inconvenient Truth," won an Oscar. In his speech, he did not address what to do about coal, which is responsible for more than a third of the United States' carbon dioxide pollution, the most prevalent of the greenhouse gases blamed for global warming. Coal's share of electricity generation is only expected to grow between now and 2030, according to Energy Department forecasts that assume no new government controls will be put on pollution. Renewable energy resources' share of the power production would grow to 11 percent under that scenario. In an interview with The Associated Press after his speech, Gore said coal's place in the nation's energy future will depend on whether the industry cuts back on carbon. "Even coal has a role to play if the carbon dioxide is captured and safely buried ... but clean coal does not exist right now," Gore said. Gore told the AP that his plan counts on nuclear power plants still providing about a fifth of the nation's electricity while the U.S. dramatically increases it's use of solar, wind, geothermal energy and clean coal technology. He said one of the largest obstacles will be updating the nation's electricity grid to harness power from solar panels, windmills and dams and transport it to cities. The Edison Electric Institute, the private utility industry's trade association, said it shares Gore's support for more renewable generation, a "smarter" power grid and the eventual use of plug-in electric vehicles. "But we cannot do the job with renewable and efficiency alone," it said. A portfolio for the future must also include "an expanded role for nuclear energy, as well as natural gas and clean coal with carbon capture and storage." Some energy experts said the turnaround Gore advocates is too fast. Robby Diamond, president of Securing America's Future Energy, a nonpartisan energy policy group, said weaning the nation away from fossil fuels - coal, oil and natural gas - can't be done in a decade. "The country is not going to be able to go cold turkey," Diamond said. "We have a hundred years of infrastructure with trillions of dollars of investment that is not simply going to be made obsolete." Gore said the changing economics of energy, in which high gasoline and oil prices are driving investments in renewable energy, would overcome the political and technological obstacles. His challenge comes as Congress, and the White House, are debating how to address high energy prices, particularly the oil that drives the nation's transportation. Both Democrats and Republicans are pushing for more exploration and production of domestic fossil fuels, albeit in different ways. "It is only a truly dysfunctional system that would buy into the perverse logic that the short-term answer to high gasoline prices is drilling for more oil 10 years from now," Gore said. In the past year, Congress has rejected initiatives that would make Gore's vision a reality. Requiring part of the nation's energy to come from alternative sources didn't have enough support in the Senate to become part of an energy bill in December. And a bill before the Senate last month to cut greenhouse gases got 48 votes. Jonathan Lash, president of the World Resources Institute, said in a statement that the problem has been political will. "Climate change and energy security are not just threats ... , they are opportunities," he said. "We need to change the debate in this country from what we can't do, to what we can do." Gore told the AP he hoped the speech would contribute to "a new political environment in this country that will allow the next president to do what I think the next president is going to think is the right thing to do." He said both fellow Democrat Barrack Obama and Republican rival John McCain are "way ahead" of most politicians in the fight against global climate change. McCain, who supports building more nuclear power plants as one solution to global warming, said Thursday he admires Gore as an early and outspoken advocate of addressing the global warming problem even though "there may be some aspects of climate change that he and I are in disagreement (on)." Of the goals Gore outlined Thursday for generating more electricity with solar and wind resources, McCain said, "If the vice president says it's doable, I believe it's doable."
MCCAIN + OBAMA = A VALID ENERGY PLAN For years, Washington has been so feckless in reacting to the energy crisis that it's sometimes hard to believe the nation's elected officials grasp the threat. By importing nearly 60% of the oil we use, we don't just leave ourselves vulnerable to higher prices and lower living standards, we prop up oil-rich nations that include some of our fiercest enemies. In response, the nation has done almost nothing. Presidents have generally offered up warmed-over and incomplete solutions. Republicans say drill; Democrats say conserve. Congress hasn't done much more than hold hearings that sometimes look like show trials, hoping to score political points. So it's reassuring that the two presidential candidates appear to take the energy crisis seriously and have ambitious ideas for attacking it. Sen. John McCain calls energy policy "one of (the) great questions" of this campaign, and Sen. Barack Obama says it's "one of the greatest challenges that this generation of Americans will ever face." That's not exactly surprising since to say otherwise in an era of $4 gasoline seems foolish. Nor is either candidate above a little pandering. McCain backs a gasoline tax holiday that would save consumers virtually nothing, and Obama supports a windfall profits tax on Big Oil that is more an expression of pique than productive policy. And while both have worthwhile proposals, each rules out too many useful solutions. Getting the USA past its dependence on foreign oil will require many fixes. If you roll McCain's and Obama's proposals together, though, they add up to a credible energy plan. Some examples: * Offshore drilling. McCain trumps Obama by calling for more offshore drilling to increase U.S. supplies. Obama complains that it wouldn't cut pump prices now and might eventually add only a small amount to world supplies, which is true but misses the point. Increasing U.S. supply and cutting imports while the nation shifts away from oil is a worthwhile goal. * Renewable electricity. Obama trumps McCain with a plan to require utilities to produce 25% of their electricity with solar, wind, biomass or other renewable energy sources by 2025. This is a smart approach that sets a necessary target but leaves it to the industry to figure out how to meet it. * Tax incentives for solar, wind, etc. Tax breaks have been a useful way to nurse alternative fuels into the marketplace. McCain opposed them until changing his position recently to join Obama in support. Imagine what might happen, for instance, if it made economic sense for people to install solar panels on their homes, as happens now in Germany, thanks to subsidies. * More nuclear power. McCain's call for 45 new nuclear plants by 2030 is a daunting, possibly unrealistic goal, and Obama doesn't want any more plants until there's an acceptable way to secure the waste. But both men acknowledge that nuclear power should be a growing part of the equation. They're right. * Government funding. If spending billions of dollars on energy research could solve the energy crisis, we wouldn't be having this conversation, since that's already been done. Obama would spend about $15 billion a year. McCain wants much less, chiefly for coal. There's a role for this kind of spending, especially for coal, where the challenge is using America's enormous supply without worsening global warming. The questions are how much to spend and where to focus. Setting mandates and providing tax incentives while pressuring industry to work out solutions seems like a more efficient approach. * $300 million battery prize. Obama derides this as a gimmick, but McCain's idea for developing a radically better battery for powering a new generation of cars strikes us as smarter than more bureaucratic approaches. Like the X-Prize that helped propel the first civilian aircraft into space, a reward can leverage huge private investment. The idea would be better, though, if it focused on building radically more fuel-efficient cars regardless of the technology. It won't be hard to improve on the energy record of President Bush and his predecessors, but for the next president, standing still won't be an option. Whoever wins will benefit from stealing an idea or two from his opponent. Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama on energy policies: Windfall profits tax Expanded offshore drilling Alaska refuge drilling Gas tax holiday More nuclear plants Tax breaks for solar, etc. Mandate electricity from wind, solar, etc. Subsidies for ethanol $300 million battery prize Funding for clean coal
PANEL ON THE HUNT FOR ENERGY ZONES UTAH'S RENEWABLE A task force of 20 representatives from government, utility companies and advocacy groups took its first step Wednesday toward mapping out the most promising areas in the state to develop solar, wind and geothermal energy. The goal is to define "renewable energy zones," to highlight locations to identify the areas most promising for development and where additional transmission capacity might be needed. Dianne Nielsen, Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr.'s energy adviser and co-chair of the task force, said bringing together a diverse group of energy experts will help to avoid pitfalls and work through issues to make sure the best possible sites are identified. That will help accelerate the process of getting the power on line to help the state's goal of having 20 percent of the power used in the state coming from renewable or low-carbon sources by 2025, if it is cost-effective. "I think the target that was identified is achievable," Nielsen said. "The hard part is figuring out how to reach it, what the steps are that you have to take to get there." The task force hopes to complete its report on the high-potential zones by Nov. 13. A second phase will make policy recommendations on how to accelerate transmission planning and permitting for renewable projects, and look at the cost-effectiveness and transmission needs. Rick Allis of the Utah Geological Survey, who is co-chairing the task force, said there are about 810 gigawatt-hours of renewable energy in Utah's system today. That will have to grow to somewhere in the ballpark of 10,000 gigawatt hours by 2025.
UTAH'S RENEWABLE RESOURCES Wind: * Utah currently has about 19 megawatts of wind power in Spanish Fork Canyon. * The big barriers to developing wind power are initial costs and access to transmission lines. Solar: * Utah has considerable solar potential, especially in the western and southwestern parts of the state. * Southern Utah has about 300 sunny days per year. * There is no commercial development of solar power in Utah. * Again, cost of development and access to transmission lines are the biggest obstacles. Geothermal: * There are limited resource areas in Utah. * PacifiCorp reports 82.5 megawatts "in progress." * Geothermal is a baseload source of power, meaning it produces a steady supply of electricity. * There are high upfront costs for drilling, transmission is an issue and projects take longer to develop.
HUNTSMAN CALLS FOR CLIMATE CHANGE PLAN Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. is challenging the Western Governors Association to put together a comprehensive energy and climate change blueprint that the group can present to the next U.S. president, in hopes of driving the nation's energy future. Comparing it to President Kennedy's challenge in 1961 to send a man to the moon, Huntsman said the country needs a goal, and as many specifics as possible how to reach it. Western governors, he said, are uniquely situated to provide the vision. "We have geography and numbers on our side. We are the most energy relevant region in the world when you take a slice of Western Canada right through the Western United States and who isn't going to listen to this part of the world speak out on energy issues?" Huntsman said. The governors took the initial steps toward building a skeleton for that policy on Tuesday, in discussions focused on how to shape government policies and private sector partnerships aimed at developing diverse, climate-friendly domestic energy sources. The governors, working with WGA staff, hope to have a bipartisan energy policy plan to present to the new president - whoever wins the election - early next year. "It's very difficult to say what the heck the energy policy of the United States is," said Jeff Sterba, President and CEO of PNM Resources. "We don't have one. We don't have anything that is close to it." Sterba said the governors should urge the new president to take the lead on greenhouse gas technology and recognize that the country has not invested enough in energy technology. "The people who are going to drive change, particularly in the clean energy, clean water space, are going to be governors," said Jeff Immelt, chairman and CEO of General Electric. He suggested setting target levels for different types of energy, adopting a national renewable portfolio standard, shaping tax incentives that encourage new technology and promote conservation, putting a price on carbon emissions and using universities to develop new ideas. It will be up to the governors, he said, to try to "stand together to create a tapestry of an energy policy." "What we have today is the worst of all worlds. We have nothing," Immelt said. At the same time, he said his company is plowing ahead with green energy investment, and will continue to do so, anticipating that not much of anything will change at the federal level. Premier Gordon Campbell of British Columbia, said there is no area better situated to take the lead on such a task. "If we don't change now, our kids don't inherit this world," Campbell said. "We're not followers, we're leaders. We should lead, we should act, and we should do it together." Gov. Christine Gregoire of Washington was skeptical that the federal government would listen, or feared the Western governors' offering would "get turned into mush" by Congress. She said it will take backing from a range of interests, including corporations, to make any change. Huntsman, who took over as chairman of the Western Governors Association this week, said he anticipates the plan will be "as specific as the political will will allow." Gov. Dave Freudenthal of Wyoming said Huntsman's goal is ambitious, but "we have climbed higher mountains than that and we will succeed." Huntsman also said he hopes to begin a global dialogue, especially with China, on the topic of energy production and climate change, and to try to develop some regional or potentially national policy to address the future of water.
TAILINGS TAB COULD TOP $1 BILLION The cost of hauling away the Moab tailings by 2019 could exceed $1 billion, according to the latest estimate by the U.S. Energy Department, the agency managing the cleanup. Congress ordered updated cost projections based on a cleanup timetable that is nearly a decade shorter than the DOE's. The department had been planning to spend about $30 million a year through 2028 to remove the leftover uranium waste piled up on the banks of the Colorado River outside of Moab. U.S. Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, said the new cost estimates are "radically different" from the projections of a couple of years ago. "I question why doing the project more quickly will cost more money," he said. Matheson called the department "nonresponsive and uncooperative" in providing financial estimates to Congress in the past. He and Utah Republican Sen. Bob Bennett have joined local officials in pushing for the 2019 completion. They also have pressed hard to pay for getting the uranium-processing waste moved by truck or rail from Moab to a specially constructed disposal cell at Crescent Junction, about 32 miles north. But securing annual funding is likely to be much tougher when the annual costs are between $79 million and $103 million from 2010 to 2019, as the DOE estimates. The total cost would be between $844.2 million and $1.1 billion, under the projections DOE submitted in a report to Congress on Tuesday. "While I acknowledge the progress that has been made, I am concerned we will continue to face escalating costs the longer it takes to remove the tailings," said Bennett. "This report [released Tuesday] underscores the need to complete the project as quickly as possible." DOE spokeswoman Joann Wardrip said the latest estimate is not much different from what was projected after an 18-month review. That included all the programs in the DOE's Office of Environmental Management that were noted in fiscal year 2009 budget documents the department submitted to Congress a few months ago. DOE said then that to clean up the Moab site by 2028 would cost between $723 million and $951 million. On the estimates for an accelerated cleanup, Wardrip said, "It's a modest increase in price to get the job completed faster." The agency's goal, she added, is to finish the cleanup safely, thoroughly and as quickly as possible. The 16 million tons of tailings have leached ammonia, uranium and other contaminants into the Colorado River, which about 50 million people in seven states rely on for water.
G-8: CUT EMISSIONS BY 2050 TOYAKO, Japan — World leaders embraced for the first time on Tuesday an ambitious but nonbinding goal of slashing greenhouse-gas emissions in half by midcentury to stave off global warming. Unimpressed environmentalists called the effort too slow and too uncertain. Leaders of some of the world's richest nations praised the agreement, which endorsed President Bush's insistence that fast-developing countries like China and India join in the effort. But one environmental critic suggested that by 2050 those leaders would be forgotten and "the Details were scant m the statement issued by the Group of Eight. Developing nations invited to the gathering said, today they agreed that climate change was "one of the great global challenges of our time" were not ready to go as far as supporting the 50 percent reduction by 2050. The G-8 did not specify abase year for its proposed 50 percent cut, and the actual emissions reductions and the effect on the environment could vary hugely depending on what is eventually decided. Secretary-General Ban Kimoon said it was essential to set a long-term goal for global greenhouse emission by 2050. He said the world cannot afford to wait until 2009, when nations are planning to try to conclude a new global warming treaty to succeed the Kyoto Protocol when its first phase expires in 2012. The United States has never ratified the Kyoto treaty, with Bush complaining that it puts too much of a burden on the U.S. and other developed countries to reduce emissions while developing giants such as China and India are given a freer rein to pollute. Bush will leave office in January, and both major candidates to succeed him have said they are willing to go further in cutting back American emissions.
GOVERNORS CAN'T AGREE ON PHILADELPHIA - Governors from across the country agree that it will take bold leadership to confront the nation's energy crisis. But they couldn't come to a consensus position on climate change or nuclear expansion or the future of coal. The best they could do was a letter calling on Washington to extend solar and wind energy tax credits for five years. The conclusion of the four-day National Governors Association conference in Philadelphia may have fallen short of the hopes of people like Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr., but he calls the tax credits that will phase out without congressional action vital. "Continuing the renewable tax credit legislation is critical for the nation's energy security, economic prowess and making progress in reducing carbon emissions," he said in a statement Monday. Huntsman met behind closed doors with dozens of other governors on Sunday, hoping to reach a broader agreement on energy policy, culminating months of negotiations. But not every governor agreed that new nuclear plants should be built or that carbon emissions should be taxed. The association's natural resources committee, of which Huntsman is a member, took a lead in drafting the consensus letter, which has not been released publicly. The committee of 14 governors, many from Western states such as Utah, Wyoming and Montana, backed new nuclear plants and a push for clean coal technology. A second letter they drafted including those initiatives was shelved after they failed to get a consensus among all governors attending. At the end of the summer meetings, Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell took over the reins of the governor's association from Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty and will shift the focus away from energy policy to the need to rebuild the nation's roads, mass transit and bridges. Rendell's initiative will try to encourage more financial support from the federal government, while pushing states to develop projects with climate change in mind.
WIND IS CHEAP, BUT WIND-POWER GOALS WASHINGTON — Led by billionaire Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens, pioneers in the emerging wind-power industry are touting their product as The. Next Big Thing as they chart .a course to produce at least 20 percent of the nation's electricity in just over two decades. But reaching that goal won't be easy. The most daunting challenge centers on the fundamental question of how to get the product to customers. That will require building thousands of miles of transmission lines to carry electricity from turbines clustered on wind-swept prairies in America's heartland to distant cities and towns. Industry leaders are calling for a national commitment to wind power on the same scale as the Eisenhower administration's commitment to constructing the Interstate Highway System. Erecting a transmission The undertaking faces "all kinds of problems," from right-of-way issues to resistance by "not-in-my backyard" groups opposed to the aesthetic intrusion of giant wind turbines, says Steven P. Lindenberg, with the office of wind and hydropower technologies in the Department of Energy. With the price of gasoline shooting past $4 a gallon, wind power has emerged as a promising source of clean, renewable energy. Pickens: who amassed a fortune in the oil business, is now touting wind power with a $58 million multimedia campaign denouncing the nation's dependence on foreign oil. The 80-year-old chairman of BP Capital Management, who is building the world's biggest wind farm in the Texas Panhandle, urged Congress this past week to commit to wind energy during a series of recent appearances on Capitol Hill. Pickens says Americans can reduce foreign oil dependence by more than a third by ramping up wind power for electricity generation, thus freeing up the country's More than 25,000 wind turbines are operating nationwide, and industry leaders envision a potential boom in coming years. The American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) has declared a goal of 20 percent wind energy by2030, buoyed by an energy department study concluding that the goal was feasible. "This is a technology that has been fully vetted," said AWEA President James A. Walker of the California-based enXco, which builds wind energy projects nationwide. "This is ready for prime time." The U.S. wind industry started in California in the 1970s when an oil shortage increased the cost of oil-based electricity. After a series of ups and downs, wind power has surged with concern over global warming and latter-day oil spikes. Most of the nation's turbine farms are located in the "wind corridor" stretching through the center of the country from Texas to the Canadian border. Texas, with more than 4,000 turbines, is the biggest wind producer, surpassing California for that title in 2006. Lindenberg who participated in a briefing on wind energy for congressional aides, said existing lines are capable of carrying only a small amount of projected wind power, thus requiring an ambitious plan to build new lines and towers. Walker pegged the cost at $60 billion but Pickens projects a cost of about $200 billion.
WHITE HOUSE REJECTS GREENHOUSE WASHINGTON (AP) _ The Bush administration, dismissing the recommendations of its top experts, rejected regulating the greenhouse gases blamed for global warming Friday, saying it would cripple the U.S. economy. In a 588-page federal notice, the Environmental Protection Agency made no finding on whether global warming poses a threat to people's health or welfare, reversing an earlier conclusion at the insistence of the White House and officially kicking any decision on a solution to the next president and Congress. The White House on Thursday rejected the EPA's suggestion three weeks earlier that the 1970 Clean Air Act can be both workable and effective for addressing global climate change. The EPA said Friday that law is "ill-suited" for dealing with global warming. "If our nation is truly serious about regulating greenhouse gases, the Clean Air Act is the wrong tool for the job," EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson told reporters. "It is really at the feet of Congress." White House press secretary Dana Perino said that President Bush is committed to further reductions but that there is a "right way and a wrong way to deal with climate change." The wrong way is "to sharply increase gasoline prices, home heating bills and the cost of energy for American businesses," she said. "The right way, as the president has proposed, is to invest in new technologies." At the just concluded G-8 summit at Toyako, Japan, Bush and other world leaders called for a voluntary 50 percent reduction in greenhouse gases worldwide by 2050 but offered no specifics on how to do it. In a setback for Bush, the Supreme Court ruled last year that the government had the authority under the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gases as a pollutant. Bush has consistently opposed doing that. Congress hasn't found the will to do much about the problem either. Supporters of regulating greenhouse gases could get only 48 votes in the 100-member Senate last month. The House has held several hearings on the problem but no votes on any bill addressing it. Both major presidential candidates, Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama, have endorsed variations of the approach rejected by the Senate. In its voluminous document, the EPA laid out a buffet of options on how to reduce greenhouse gases from cars, ships, trains, power plants, factories and refineries. On Friday, Johnson called the proposals drafted by his staff as "putting a square peg into a round hole" and he said moving forward would be irresponsible. "One point is clear: The potential regulation of greenhouse gases under any portion of the Clean Air Act could result in unprecedented expansion of EPA authority that would have a profound effect on virtually every sector of the economy and touch every household in the land," Johnson wrote in the document's preface Friday. Attorneys general from several states called the administration's findings inadequate. "While we appreciate the effort that EPA staff made in putting together today's documents, the time has long passed for open-ended pondering - what we need now is action," said Attorney General Martha Coakley of Massachusetts, which initiated the Supreme Court case. The EPA said it had encountered resistance from the Agriculture, Commerce, Energy and Transportation departments, as well as the White House, that made it "impossible" to respond in a timely fashion to the Supreme Court decision. "Our agencies have serious concerns with this suggestion because it does not fairly recognize the enormous - and, we believe, insurmountable - burdens, difficulties, and costs, and likely limited benefits, of using the Clean Air Act" to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, the secretaries of the four agencies wrote to the White House on Wednesday. Discussing the benefits from reducing greenhouse gases, the EPA said doing nothing more than increasing fuel efficiency standards under last year's energy bill will reduce the harmful effects of global warming by $340 billion to $830 billion over the next three decades. In a May draft of Friday's notice, the EPA had put the benefits to society of further reducing greenhouse gases at $2 trillion. Friday's action caps months of often tense negotiations between EPA scientists and the White House over how to address global warming under the major federal air pollution law. It ended with the White House and other agencies citing "extraordinary circumstances" and refusing to review the draft forwarded in June by EPA scientists. The document released Friday is much more cautious than a determination made in December by the agency that found greenhouse gases endangered welfare, and it also appears to counteract findings of drafts released in May and June that found the Clean Air Act could be an effective tool for reducing greenhouse gases. Rep. Edward Markey, chairman of the House Select Committee on Global Warming, called the administration's findings "the bureaucratic equivalent of saying that the dog ate your homework." "The White House has taken an earnest attempt by their own climate experts to respond to the Supreme Court's mandate to address global warming pollution and turned it into a Frankenstein's monster," said Markey, D-Mass. Industry groups still expressed concern Friday over some of the suggestions included in the document, which will be the basis for a future action rule under a new president more inclined to take tougher action to address global warming. "Our point on this is that EPA has set forth a road map which literally throws the entire way which we manage the environment and economy in complete turmoil," said Bill Kovacs, vice president of the Environment, Technology and Regulatory Affairs Division at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
COMMODITIES SURGE Commodities are heading for their best first half in 35 years. The next six months may not be as rewarding because record prices for oil, copper and a dozen other raw materials may crimp consumption and encourage growth in supply. The 19 commodities in the Reuters/Jefferies CRB Index jumped 29 percent this year, the most since 1973 and more than any second-half gain in at least five decades, data compiled by Bloomberg show. High costs are slowing the pace of demand for gasoline in the U.S., and gold purchases in India, the biggest buyer, plunged 50 percent from a year earlier. Producers are expanding supplies of wheat in the U.S. and steel in China. ''We're near some kind of reckoning'' in commodities, said Michael Aronstein, president of Marketfield Asset Management in New York, who returned 15 percent a year in the 1990s managing commodity investments. ''I've probably been positive for seven years, and this is the first time I think there could be really a dramatic secular reversal, that it's not just a pullback.'' High energy costs will deter consumers and reduce second-half prices, after oil doubled in the past year to a record $142.99 a barrel June 27, said Chris Rupkey, chief financial economist at Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ Ltd. In the U.S., the world's largest energy user, the number of travelers over the Fourth of July holiday will drop for the first time this decade, after gasoline rose above $4 a gallon, motoring group AAA said June 26. Demand is slowing for copper after the metal jumped 28 percent this year and reached $4.2605 a pound May 5, the highest ever, partly because of temporary supply disruptions in Chile, Peru and Mexico. China said June 10 its copper imports fell 19 percent last month to the lowest since August. Gold demand from jewelers, the biggest users, has stalled since September, London-based UBS AG analyst John Reade said May 29. After reaching a record $1,033.90 an ounce March 17, gold will average $850 this year and $750 next year, he said. The World Gold Council said May 20 that first-quarter demand fell to a five-year low. Price gains that curb demand are encouraging producers. Katanga Mining Ltd. restarted the largest underground copper mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The Lisbon-based International Copper Study Group on April 28 forecast a supply surplus this year and next. The world's wheat farmers will boost production by 8.2 percent to 658 million metric tons in the next 12 months, the International Grains Council said June 26. Wheat jumped to its highest price ever in February. Output is gaining as economic growth slows. The odds of the U.S. entering a recession in the next 12 months are 50 percent, according to the median forecast of 61 economists in a Bloomberg survey. Slowing global growth signals commodity demand will ''soften,'' the International Monetary Fund said in March. During the last U.S. recession in 2001, the CRB index plunged 16 percent. Commodities advanced this year during a ''buying orgy'' by investors seeking better returns than stocks and bonds, Paul Touradji, founder of the $3.5 billion hedge fund Touradji Capital Management, said in March.
S&P 500 TUMBLES TO BEAR MARKET U.S. stocks tumbled Wednesday, sending the Standard & Poor's 500 Index into its first bear market since 2002, on growing concern the biggest mortgage finance companies may not weather the housing slump. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac led financial shares to their biggest decline in six years after Fannie's borrowing costs surged on concern it won't be able to fund its business. Cisco Systems Inc. dropped to the lowest level since September 2006 and Intel Corp. slid to a six-month low on analyst predictions that a slowing economy may hurt sales. Bank of America Corp. and Citigroup Inc. fell as Credit Suisse AG said 40 percent of the biggest U.S. lenders may need to cut dividends or raise more capital. The S&P 500 lost 29.01 points, or 2.3 percent, to a two-year low of 1,244.69. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 236.77, or 2.1 percent, to 11,147.44. The Nasdaq Composite Index plunged 59.55, or 2.6 percent, to 2,234.89. Almost four stocks declined for each that rose on the New York Stock Exchange. ''The trouble with the financials is that so much of it is a black box,'' Nick Sargen, who helps oversee $30 billion as chief investment officer of Fort Washington Investment Advisors in Cincinnati, said in an interview with Bloomberg Television. ''Everybody thought the worst of the write-downs were passed in April. And behold, here we are now and that wasn't the case.'' The S&P 500 extended its retreat from an October record to more than the 20 percent threshold that signals the start of a so-called bear market. The Dow has fallen 21 percent from its October all-time high and closed in a bear market on July 2. With dismal bank and lender earnings expected in the coming weeks, investors were unable to keep buying a day after stocks, including financials, had logged sharp gains. Investors are bracing for financial companies to take another series of major credit-related write-downs, but the uncertainty about how large they will be is weighing on the market, said Scott Wren, senior equity strategist at Wachovia Securities. ''As we go into earnings season, it's going to be much of the same as the first quarter,'' Wren said. ''Financials are going to suffer the worst comparisons again; con- sumer discretionary earnings are going to be down, too.'' Meanwhile, oil remained a concern although it had dropped by more than $9 a barrel over the previous two sessions. Crude fluctuated before settling up a penny at $136.05 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The S&P 500 has had eight previous bear markets since 1962, according to data compiled by Birinyi Associates, a stock research firm based in Westport, Conn. Stocks have fallen an average of 33 percent over 382 days during those retreats. The S&P 500's retreat from its peak has lasted 274 calendar days so far. The Dow has had 11 previous bear markets since 1962, averaging a decline of 29 percent over 322 days. A 46 percent tumble in financial shares and a 27 percent decline by consumer companies dependent on discretionary spending led the S&P 500's retreat from its Oct. 9 closing record of 1,565.15. MBIA Inc., the bond insurer whose credit rating was reduced five times by Moody's Investors Service, slid the most since the S&P 500's all-time high, falling 94 percent.
UTAH JOB GROWTH FALLS BELOW 1% Job losses in the residential real-estate industry continue to take their toll on Utah's economy, pushing employment growth last month below the 1 percent mark for the first time in five years. The state added 11,500 jobs in the year that ended in June for an employment growth rate of 0.9 percent, the Utah Department of Workforce Services said Tuesday in its monthly jobs report. That's down from 1.3 percent in the year that ended in May and down significantly from a peak of 5.4 percent in the year that ended in June 2006, when the state's economy added 54,000 jobs. By comparison, the U.S. rate is a negative 0.1 percent. But in another couple of months, the state could be in the situation of not creating any jobs year over year, said Mark Knold, chief economist with the Utah Department of Workforce Services. "You just have this one industry having a glaringly bad time," he said. Existing home sales are down significantly from last year in most areas along the Wasatch Front. And the number of building permits taken out by builders is at a two-decade low. Builders took out permits for the construction of 354 homes last month, down from 1,027 in June 2007 and 1,728 in the same month in 2006, according to Construction Monitor, a service that tracks home-building activity throughout the West. The real-estate downturn - which began last summer in Utah and two years earlier in most other states - had its origins in the nation's subprime-lending debacle, in which scores of people with less than good credit, low incomes and/or high-debt loans got home loans they could ill afford to repay. Many of these loans are ending in foreclosure. Today, tighter lending standards put in place after the crisis have made it harder for potential buyers to qualify for loans. Years of home-price run-ups also have made it difficult for many Utah families to afford to buy. With fewer homes being sold and built, many Utahns have lost jobs related to residential real estate. Workers at a variety of companies are affected, including real-estate brokerages, title companies, furniture retailers and home-improvement companies that sell related goods and services. On the unemployment side, Utah's rate in June was 3.2 percent, which translates to about 44,800 Utahns who were looking for work. That's up from 36,400 people in June 2007, when unemployment was 2.7 percent, but is still well below the national jobless rate, at 5.5 percent. All job sectors in Utah - except construction and financial activities - are adding jobs. But Knold said that could change. "There's a danger of this whole thing affecting other industries." Even commercial real estate, which had been quite robust, is slowing down. The good news is that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is helping prop up that market by pumping millions of dollars each of the next several years into its massive City Creek Center project, which includes new retail, office and residential space in downtown Salt Lake City. Knold said that gasoline prices also are weighing heavily on the state and national economies. On Tuesday, the average cost of a gallon of unleaded gasoline in Utah hit yet another record, at $4.19 per gallon. Nationally, gas prices also hit a record, at $4.11 per gallon, travel services agency AAA Utah reported. "Gas prices are another issue," Knold said. "If you could bring gasoline prices down a bit, it would pump a great deal of confidence back into this economy."
ECONOMY SEEN AS CONTINUING TO SLIDE IN '08 NEW YORK- Factories laying off workers, stocks tumbling and shoppers ditching their credit cards forced the economy to contract in June, a trend likely to continue in the second half of 2008, a private business group said Monday. The New York-based Conference Board's forecast of future economic activity fell 0.1 percent last month, in line with forecasts by Wall Street economists surveyed by ThomÂson Financial/IFR. The group also revised May's number downward to a 0.2 percent decrease, from a 0.1 percent increase. The financial crisis, high gasoline and food prices, and the weak dollar ''are all combining to produce unrelenting downward pressure on economic activity,'' said Ken Goldstein, labor economist with the Conference Board. ''This is also why it wouldn't take much to push the economy so it's even weaker in the second half of 2008.'' The index has slipped 0.9 percent for the six months ending in June, but the rate of decline has improved since the first quarter. The index is designed to forecast where the economy is heading in the next three to six months based on 10 economic components, including stock prices, building permits and initial claims for unemployment benefits. Downturns in the auto and housing industries have been devastating for the manufacturers that produce everything from spark plugs to vinyl siding. And more job cuts are almost certain: General Motors Corp. said last week it will slash production of trucks and sport utility vehicles by 300,000 by the end of next year. Manufacturers that make anything related to cars and trucks have been laying off workers, cutting hours, selling the companies or shutting their doors, said Ralph Hardt, president of Feintool Inc., a Cincinnati component maker. ''The number of auction flyers that come across my desk is back where it was in 2000, 2001, the last recession we had,'' he said. A change in New York city's building code saved June's index from a larger drop, said Ian Shepherdson, chief economist of High Frequency Economics in Valhalla, N.Y. Building permits for apartments and condos leapt in New York last month as builders rushed to file permits ahead of a new city construction code. The increase was so large that it boosted the leading index by 0.3 percent. Stock investors appeared to ignore the Conference Board data after better-than-expected earnings from Bank of America Corp., but Wall Street fluctuated Monday on worries about earnings at drug makers Merck & Co. and Schering-Plough Corp. The Dow Jones industrial average lost 28.99 to close at 11,467.34. The Nasdaq composite index lost 3.25 to close at 2,279.53 and the Standard & Poor's 500 index edged 0.68 lower, to 1,260.
TREASURY: ACT FAST, U.S., TO SAVE BIG BANKS WASHINGTON - Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson spent another day stumping for the U.S. banking system, declaring Tuesday that his top priority was ensuring ''stability and confidence in our markets and financial institutions.'' However, those soothing words had to confront the reality of another massive loss by a big bank. Wachovia Corp., the nation's fourth largest, reported that it had lost $8.86 billion in the second quarter due to soaring bad mortgage debt. It said it would slash its dividend and eliminate 10,750 positions out of a work force of roughly 120,000 employees. Paulson, speaking to business executives in New York City, acknowledged that the overall economy and the financial system were going through a ''period of stress,'' which he said could last for a number of more months. But he insisted that the U.S. economy would emerge from the troubles ''stronger and better poised for robust growth.'' Paulson said it was critically important for Congress to move rapidly to approve a support package for mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac because of the important role the two institutions play in supporting almost half of the home mortgages in the country. He said Congress's approval, which he predicted would come this week, would be ''central to the speed with which we emerge from this housing correction'' because it would guarantee the continued flow of mortgages to qualified home buyers. The administration's support package for Fannie and Freddie could cost taxpayers as much as $25 billion, the Congressional Budget Office estimated in an analysis released Tuesday. But CBO Director Peter Orszag said in a letter to lawmakers that there was also ''a significant chance - probably better than 50 percent'' that the support effort will not have to be used before it is scheduled to expire at the end of 2009. In an effort to convince wavering lawmakers that the two giant institutions were basically sound, Treasury let it be known that bank examiners from both the Federal Reserve and the Office of the Comptroller are currently inspecting the books of the two institutions. Paulson said in an interview Tuesday in The New York Times that he believed the results of those examinations would offer an important signal of confidence for markets. While all of Paulson's talk of urgency in the Fannie and Freddie situation could unnerve already jittery investors, analysts said the administration has little choice but to press the issue. ''Never before have we seen this level of foreclosures and this sort of panic in the mortgage market,'' said David Wyss, chief economist at Standard & Poor's in New York. ''Adding to those worries isn't the biggest problem right now. The government has got to be seen effectively addressing these issues.'' The administration on July 13 unveiled a plan to provide unlimited government loans to the two mortgage giants and to purchase stock in the two companies if needed. Paulson has stressed that the proposal is a backup effort that would be in effect for 18 months as a way to calm investor fears. While critics have charged that the open-ended offer of support exposes taxpayers to billions of dollars of potential losses, Paulson repeated his view that the support effort is critical because of the role that Fannie and Freddie play in not only U.S. but also global capital markets. Paulson said that of the $5 trillion in debt and mortgage-backed securities Fannie and Freddie have issued, more than $3 trillion is held by U.S. financial institutions and over $1.5 trillion is held by foreign institutions. ''Investors in our nation and around the world need to know that we understand how important these institutions are to our capital markets broadly and to the U.S. economy,'' Paulson told his audience at the New York Public Library.
NEWS ON HOUSING, Two cornerstones of the economy - jobs and housing - sank to new depths Thursday, with unemployment claims bolting higher and home prices recording one of their steepest drops on record. The bleak reports underscored the self-reinforcing cycle hampering the economy: As home prices sink, foreclosures rise, banks feel pressure to shy away from lending and employers cut jobs. Wall Street abruptly ended an earnings-driven rally and closed sharply lower Thursday after a steeper-than-expected decline in existing home sales and worries about the financial sector chilled the market's recent optimism. According to preliminary calculations, the Dow fell 283.10, or 2.43 percent, to 11,349.28. It was the biggest decline for the Dow since June 26. The Labor Department said the number of newly laid-off people filing for unemployment benefits rose to 406,000 last week, a jump of a seasonally adjusted 34,000. The last time jobless claims were higher was after the Gulf Coast hurricanes in 2005. The housing news wasn't any better: As sales of previously owned homes fell in June and a glut of unsold and foreclosed homes on the market, the value of Americans' biggest asset continued to sag. The median price for a home sold in June was $215,100, a drop of more than 6 percent from a year earlier and the fifth-largest year-to-year price drop on record, the National Association of Realtors said. Sales of previously owned homes fell 2.6 percent, to an annualized rate of 4.86 million. With companies laying off workers and new jobs increasingly hard to find, the ranks of new homebuyers could shrivel further, spelling even more trouble ahead for the housing market and the economy. Consumer spending, the very lifeblood of the economy, is further in jeopardy. ''If you don't have a job or are concerned about keeping your job, you are not going to rush out to buy anything - let alone a home,'' said Richard Yamarone, economist at Argus Research. The pullback erased the nearly 170 points added in the two previous sessions. Last week, the Dow gained nearly 400 points. While some declines after the latest rally wouldn't have come as a surprise, the drop Thursday revealed fresh unease about the economy. Broader stock indicators also declined. The Standard & Poor's 500 index fell 29.65, or 2.31 percent, to 1,252.54. A jump in Amazon.com Inc. shares helped contain some of the decline in the technology-heavy Nasdaq composite index, which fell 45.77, or 1.97 percent, to 2,280.11. Another report Thursday showed the number of vacant houses hit an all-time high in the second quarter as the U.S. real estate recession pushed homeowners into foreclosure. A total of 18.6 million U.S. homes stood empty, more than at any time in history, as lenders seized a record number of properties. The figure was 6.9 percent higher than a year earlier, the U.S. Census Bureau said Thursday. The collapse of the mortgage market caused by a surge in loan defaults last year has prompted more than $467 billion in credit losses and asset write-downs at the world's biggest financial firms. This week U.S. lawmakers reached agreement on a modified version of a plan by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson to inject capital into Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the federally chartered mortgage buyers who own or guarantee almost half of the outstanding $12 trillion of the nation's mortgage debt. ''Every foreclosure creates an instant vacancy, and it tends to stay that way for some period of time as banks try to figure out what to do with these properties,'' Brian Bethune, chief U.S. financial economist at Global Insight Inc., in Lexington, Mass. The vacancy rate, the share of U.S. homes for sale, was 2.8 percent, down from an all-time high of 2.9 percent in the first quarter, the Census Bureau said.
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Governor Huntsman appointed the Commission following the Crandall Canyon Mine Disaster in 2007 where six mine workers and three rescue workers died. The OCMS exists to maximize coal mine safety, prevent coal mine accidents, and provide for effective coal mine accident response. 