Faced with heavy debt, tougher pollution control, lower coal prices, competition from natural gas and lowered demand from China, Arch Coal, the nation’s second-largest coal company, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Monday. The move was expected after Arch failed to make a debt payment December 15 last year.
Three other coal companies—Patriot Coal Corp., Alpha Natural Resources Inc., and Walter Energy Inc.—all filed for bankruptcy in 2015. Peabody Energy Corp., the world’s largest private-sector coal producer, could be next. A share of Peabody fell to a record low of $5.25 Monday. On February 23, the share price was $123.45. Coal prices are expected to fall further in 2016.
Amanda Jahshan, Wildlife Energy Conservation Fellow at the Natural Resources Defense Council, writes:
Let's hope that Arch employees and their families don't endure the same fate as those of Patriot coal, which was spun off by Peabody largely as a way to get rid of 'legacy' obligations like pensions.
Arch claimed today it has reached a deal with creditors to help meet payments and that operations will not suffer.
Yet one thing that will certainly suffer is the company's ability to meet its obligations to reclaim land despoiled by mining. As Arch Coal begins the bankruptcy process, regulators and elected officials must do more to guarantee taxpayers are not left holding the bag for hundreds of millions of dollars in clean-up costs at Arch's coal mines, which have scarred the landscape, damaged critical watersheds, and added to the carbon pollution problems the Administration is working hard to address.
Mining companies are not being held accountable for failing to protect and restore public lands to their original state, as is required under federal law. Only 10 percent of disturbed lands mined in Wyoming, Montana, and North Dakota have met reclamation requirements. The debt owed back on these lands is astronomical; the largest mines have reclamation bonds in excess of $300,000,000 a piece.
"In short, if the coal company goes bankrupt, the state or federal governments--that is, we, the people--might have to pay to clean up the company's messes," writes Clark Williams-Derry of sightline.org.
HIGH IMPACT STORIES • TOP COMMENTS
TWEET OF THE DAY
BLAST FROM THE PAST
At Daily Kos on this date in 2007—Science Friday: There is No Controversy:
Ever since the terms "Climate Change" and "Global Warming" first made the news, the right has been engaged in an effort to ridicule the whole notion. Man could have an effect on the atmosphere? Pshaw! Okay, so Rush Limbaugh and the Fox airheads don't actually say pshaw. Instead, they've said that the idea of a human-caused climate change is "ridiculous," and "malarkey" and a "farce." (I'd give you links for those, but adding a link to Limbaugh and friends would give me a rash).
Most of all, they've pushed the idea that our increasing thirst for flammable hydrocarbons might just cause an eensy change in the environment is controversial. Sure, sure, we might be having a hot year -- or two, or ten -- but that doesn't mean people had anything to do with it. After all, we're so small and the atmosphere is just so big. How could a little old us possibly have more effect than volcanoes, or cyclical changes, or the bad old carbon fairy, or whatever cause the right wants to put forward this week? We changed the air? Huh, that's just controversial.
They've depended on paid shills to generate pop-science FUD, and like the mercenaries of ignorance who constantly try to make it seem as if there's some scientific debate around evolution, they've created smoke in the hopes of making people believe there's a fire. They've created fake organizations dedicated to spreading misinformation (current headline "Earth's plants tell us they're loving the CO2 increase!") They've even made a hero out of Michael Crichton (the one man whose ego might be larger than Bush and Rush combined) and his account of a Global Warming "conspiracy," frequently citing his poorly-researched fictional tome as proof of the evil left wing environmentalist attempt to strip away your Hummer.
The trouble with this notion is that the folks who stole the "it's only a theory" page from the whacko creationists are lying. There is no controversy. There's been none in scientific journals, and no, scientists did not think we were going to freeze just a decade ago, no matter how many times the shills say they did. With every passing day, the evidence becomes more compelling.
On today’s Kagro in the Morning show, Greg Dworkin not only tells us what the polls say, he tells us why they say it. Lead in the Flint water, methane in the California air. Trump-driven Cruz birtherism might sort of have a point! GunFAIL damage runs so much deeper than the statistics say.
Find us on iTunes | Find us on Stitcher | RSS | Donate to support the show!