Sen. Byrd and Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., have introduced Senate Bill 60. Unfortunately, Sen. Rockefeller is one of several co-sponsors. The bill would blow $1 billion of taxpayer money in 10 years for "clean coal" research, and tosses $6 billion in tax breaks to power plants.

It exempts coal burning plants for 10 years from Provisions of the Clean Air Act that are supposed to, among other things, measure mercury and acid rain-forming pollutants. Strange, why does "clean coal" need to hide from the Clean Air Act?

This corporate welfare would subsidize coal at the expense of less-polluting natural gas. The bill works against truly clean energy sources such as wind, solar and fuel cells. It works against taxpayers’ wallets, lungs, children and common sense.

Could someone explain to me how the "clean coal" technologies will reduce carbon emissions? Coal is primarily carbon, the combustion of which emits greenhouse gases and escalates global warming. Economists studying the full costs of coal and economic benefits of a clean environment say we should be taxing carbon emissions, not subsidizing them!

The Center for Responsive Politics says Sen. Byrd rolled in $67,611 from mining interests in the 2000 election. The Center says Byrd ranks third and McConnell fifth highest amongst Congressional recipients of King Coal campaign donations.

Portions of SB60 may be incorporated into the "National Energy Security Act of 2001," introduced by Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Frank Murkowski, R-AK. Coupled with the "clean coal" doublespeak, the Murkowski bill would open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling and would stoke up the nuclear power industry. President Bush, citing the power "crisis" in California, is not to be left out of the coal chorus. His budget includes $2 billion for "clean coal" over a 10-year period. During the 2000 campaign, Bush got more coal cash - $114,521 - than any other politician. Bush appointed Spencer Abraham to head the Department of Energy. When he was a senator, Abraham ranked 10th highest amongst congressional recipients of Coal Cash. Abraham and Vice President "Oilman" Cheney are heading up a task force to develop a national energy policy.

In her successful bid for the House, Shelly Moore Capito received $32,500 from mining interests, $17,750 of that from coal. She believes in "clean coal" too, saying coal needs to be burned in an environmentally friendly manner.

I hope she doesn’t agree with Sen. Byrd that it’s okay to dodge measurement requirements for mercury emissions. Mercury is extremely hazardous, especially to unborn babies and children.

Let’s pretend for a moment that coal really can be burned cleanly. Before you burn it, you have to extract it. That means, up north, black lung and eons of acid mine drainage. Down south, that means more mountaintop removal, more disappearing mountain communities, more forest destruction, more stream burials, more disrupted groundwater, and more unknown long-term effects to ecosystems. Next, you have to process the coal. That means washing it for market, which means huge slurry "ponds," with their toxic stew of heavy metals and coal cleaning chemicals, looming over downstream communities. One such "pond" breakthrough last October in Kentucky created the worst ever waste spill, for which cleanup is ongoing and costs are rising. Officials have warned that the cleanup may never be complete.

Next, you have to transport the coal to market. If that’s by truck, you have more diesel-belching, overweight trucks careening dangerously along narrow mountain roads, causing occasional fatal accidents and destroying bridges and roads, which must be repaired at taxpayer expense. If that’s by barge, then you may get increased river dredging. One dredge proposed for the Kanawha River would recover coal fines downstream from a chemical plant, possibly stirring up toxic-laced sediment.

Next, you pretend to burn the coal cleanly, thanks to hefty taxpayer expense. Finally, you have to dispose of the coal ash, known to contain heavy metals such as chromium, cadmium, arsenic and mercury. Conveniently, there are no federally enforceable rules for disposing of this ash, which when stored improperly leaches into aquifers. Groundwater takes a beating, and so, ultimately, does our health.

In the latest incoming salvos from the coal PR machine, the "clean coal" myth will continue its starring role. No doubt we’ll also hear endlessly that coal provides 98 percent of West Virginia’s electricity and plenty of tax money. Never mind the $1 billion in super tax credit giveaways, the $406 million in unpaid worker’s compensation, the dirty deal of externalized – not paid by the company, but paid by society -- health and infrastructure costs. Never mind that the coal producing counties rank among the most impoverished counties in the state.

What we won’t hear about is – gasp! – energy conservation, energy efficiency or the skyrocketing growth of truly clean energies. The Worldwatch Institute reports that in 1999 worldwide coal use declined 3.3 percent, and coal jobs plummeted while U.S. wind power jumped by 29 percent. Growth in solar and hydrogen fuel cell technologies also surged. Worldwatch points out that wind farms are labor inclusive, but not capital inclusive. Worldwide, jobs in wind energy fields are predicted to number three million by 2020!

Wind power money gets to stay in the communities where the wind power is generated; whereas, King Coal annually siphons about $1.5 billion of coal money to out-of-state coal barons.

With promising renewable energy, with new reports almost daily about catastrophic global warming and the unraveling of our life-supporting ecosystems, is now the time to pour billions of taxpayer dollars into feeding an industry that seems bent on dragging us all into extinction with it?

Could that money be better spent on constructing wind farms on already scalped mountains, or on coalfield worker re-training in fuel cell manufacturing?