Colorado coal miner completing paperwork for black lung screening. (Flickr: Niosh)

The fallout from the Upper Big Branch Mine explosion that killed 29 miners in West Virginia on April 5 – and revealed a pattern of ongoing intimidation and denial by Virginia-based Massey Energy – has had ripple effects throughout the industry. Federal officials, from local offices on up to the White House, have been scrutinizing coal-mining operations.

The Mine Safety and Health Administration this week released a list of 57 potential problem mines that drew a small army of inspectors last week. Only one Colorado coal mine – the Foidel Creek Mine near Oak Creek in Routt County – made the list. Results of the inspection are not yet available.

Colorado’s coal production of just over 32,000 short tons a year pales in comparison to West Virginia, which produces more than 157,000 tons a year. Wyoming tops the list at nearly 468,000 tons a year or 40 percent of the nation’s production.

Although Colorado ranks in the top 10 in production it has not had a major mine accident since an explosion killed 15 miners at the Dutch Creek No. 1 near Redstone in Pitkin County in 1981.

Zeroed in on emissions

Instead of zeroing in on safety issues, Colorado politicians from both parties have been focusing on emissions from Colorado’s older, coal-fired power plants. Despite Gov. Bill Ritter’s “New Energy Economy” that seeks to boost the state’s renewable energy portfolio to 30 percent by 2025 (using natural gas as a bridge fuel), the state still generates more than 65 percent of its electricity by burning coal.

Earlier this week, Ritter signed into law the rapidly crafted Clean Air Clean Jobs Act, which requires Xcel Energy, the state’s largest utility, to shut down or retrofit several coal-fired power plants on the Front Range so that they burn natural gas, which is 50 percent cleaner than coal but more expensive to produce and distribute.

The fast-tracking of that bill, which brought together the state’s powerful natural gas industry, Xcel and state lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, has been criticized by some Republicans and Colorado mining representatives who say coal was left out in the cold.

State Sen. Al White, R-Hayden, whose district includes the Foidel Mine near Oak Creek, voted against the bill because he said it would destroy the state’s coal-mining industry.

“We have a saying in northwest Colorado that when the wolf and the coyote and the sheep get together to decide what’s on the menu, the sheep doesn’t turn out in such good shape,” White told the Denver Post last week.

Three Republican senators did vote for the bill, including former gubernatorial candidate Josh Penry, R-Grand Junction, the Senate minority leader whose district is rich with natural gas. Penry co-sponsored the Clean Air Clean Jobs Act because of its potential to create drilling jobs. He largely rejects the climate change benefits of reducing coal consumption.

Roadless Rules

Penry and state Rep. Cory Gardner, R-Yuma, circulated a letter to U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack late last week urging the Obama administration to accept the recently submitted Colorado Roadless Rule, which would allow road-building exemptions for coal mining in roadless areas of Colorado’s 4.2 million acres of federally owned public lands.

One of the reasons cited was the need for roads in order to drill vents to release methane gas, which is what federal officials believe built up and exploded earlier this month at the Upper Big Branch Mine.

Several Democrats signed Penry’s letter, and Democrats including U.S. Sen. Mark Udall are supportive of the Colorado Roadless Rule. Some scientists and conservationists, however, remain highly critical of the rule and favor the 2001 Clinton Roadless Rule, which was tossed out by the Bush administration and has been tied up in court for nearly a decade.

“To the best of my knowledge, nothing in any roadless rule right now, whether it’s the Colorado rule or the Clinton rule, is preventing any of these mines in the North Fork Valley [of the Gunnison River – the state’s coal-mining hotspot] from doing what they want to do right now,” said Jeremy Nichols, Denver-based climate and energy program director for WildEarth Guardians.

Instead, Nichols said Colorado’s coal industry should be more focused on the bigger picture nationally, especially given the potential for federal climate change legislation and tougher EPA regulation of emissions cited by proponent of the Clean Air Clean Jobs Act.

“If anything’s going to be an issue for these [Colorado coal] mines, it’s going to be climate policy,” Nichols said. “What’s the future of coal here? Not only do you have the coal coming out of the ground and being burned in coal-fired power plants, but the release of methane, which is a potent greenhouse gas in and of itself, also is a big deal.”

Some Colorado conservationists have been pushing the BLM to require Colorado coal mines to either capture or flare methane in order to mitigate the venting of the gas, which is 20 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.

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Conservationists were quick to praise Vilsack and the Obama administration’s one-year “time out” to establish a long-term policy for managing roadless areas. Most favor a return to the 2001 Clinton administration Roadless Area Conservation Rule.

That highly protective bit of rulemaking was quickly set aside by the Bush administration in favor of allowing states to petition the Forest Service for their own customized roadless rules. Only Idaho and Colorado did so, with Gov. Bill Ritter moving forward in order to protect against the federal rule being scrapped altogether.

Ritter, though, asked for and received a slowdown on the implementation of the Colorado roadless rule until the federal rule, which was the subject of conflicting federal court rulings, could be sorted out.

At stake are more than 100 oil and gas leases on federal lands issued after the Bush administration scrapped the Clinton rule. State conservationists also say the Colorado rule allows more road-building exceptions for logging operations and ski-area expansions than the Clinton rule.

Or how about zip lines between gas rigs in your favorite National Forest roadless area in Colorado? With families staying closer to home and exploring nature’s wonders during the Great Recession — and giving the Heisman (i.e., the stiff arm) to the cruises and theme park visits of more affluent times — the opportunities to Disney-fy the wilderness around energy exploration are virtually limitless.

Even as the National Park Service this week was reminding summer vacationers of our nation’s outdoor bounty, the Pew Environment Group was reminding Interior Secretary Ken Salazar of the energy-industry threats to that bounty. The nonprofit group fired off a letter requesting Salazar remove 1 million acres of public lands from consideration for new mining claims under the — do we have to even note that it’s “antiquated”? — 1872 Mining Law..

The chairs of both the House and Senate natural resources committees have introduced bills this session aimed at reforming the law, which was originally signed by Ulysses S. Grant to encourage pioneers to head west with pickaxes in hand.

Pew has also joined a long list of environmental groups pushing for a development moratorium on more than 54 million acres of National Forest roadless areas nationwide and a return to the Clinton administration’s roadless rule, first implemented in 2001 but quickly tossed out by the Bush administration. The return to the Clinton rule would block roads for new energy exploration and production on more than 4.4 million acres in Colorado.

Lost Horse Mill on the Elk Mountain Range's Crystal River near Marble, Colo. (Photo/Rob Lee, Flickr)

This is the Bush administration’s last chance to implement its vision of how to administer pristine forest and park land. While in the Senate, President-elect Obama opposed the Bush administration’s plans for roadless areas.

A top U.S. Department of Agriculture official reportedly told a Nov. 19 meeting of the U.S. Forest Service’s Roadless Area Conservation National Advisory Committee (RACNAC) that the goal is to have a final Colorado roadless ruled published in the Federal Register by Jan. 16.

“We have heard through channels that the Forest Service is trying very hard to get this thing out the door before the end of the Bush administration, which would make it arguably a little harder for [president-elect Barack] Obama to reverse,” said Rocky Smith of the nonprofit conservation group Colorado Wild. “We, of course, want a national rule, and any rule, whether it’s a state rule or a national rule, has to be a hell of a lot better than the draft Colorado rule.”

Smith and others have repeatedly objected to numerous exceptions for logging, oil and gas production and ski-area expansion in the Colorado roadless rule. The rule dictates the management practices for 4.4 million acres of public lands throughout the state that have been designated as essentially pristine and untrammeled by not only roads but development in general.

Environmental groups have been fighting for nearly eight years to reinstate the federal Clinton administration roadless rule that was quickly cast aside by the Bush administration in 2001. The Clinton rule has been batted about in court for years, most recently suffering a setback in a Wyoming district court, which ruled the Clinton administration didn’t conduct proper public scoping while drafting its rule in 2000. That decision is currently under appeal.

Several years after suspending the Clinton rule, which set fairly strict standards for protecting about 50 million acres of roadless public lands nationwide, the Bush administration enacted a process by which states could petition the Forest Service to draft their own rules. Only Idaho and Colorado did so.

In October, Idaho finalized its roadless rule, which more closely parallels the Clinton rule, but the Colorado rule allows for “long-term temporary” roads to be built in areas where more than 100 oil and gas leases were issued after the suspension of the Clinton rule.

The Colorado rule also would permit roads deep into heavily timbered areas to allow logging for wildfire mitigation. Most local governments and environmental groups agree that such work should be done closer to endangered communities.

“There’s a lot of concern that the proposed rule and draft environmental impact statement allows excessive cutting a long ways away from communities, which could potentially impact roadless area characteristics and the experiences that folks have in those places,” said Joel Webster, roadless manager for the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, a coalition of sportsman’s groups that objects to the removal of 520,000 acres from the state’s roadless inventory under the proposed rule. “If we’re going to be protecting communities, we need to do that near communities where people actually live.”

(Image/Southern Rockies Ecosystem Project)

“The real concern is that if this thing is done four days before the inauguration of the next president, there’s going to be a lot of controversy around this process because people are going to think it’s a last-minute land grab,” Webster said.

Smith noted that Obama co-sponsored an unsuccessful bill in the U.S. Senate that would have reinstated the Clinton roadless rule, so the new president appears motivated to protect federal roadless areas.

“It’s very possible, although Obama is going to be very busy with the economy his first 100 days, that a [national roadless] bill could pass the Congress and be signed into law by the president, and it complicates the situation if we have a final Colorado rule out,” Smith said. “So we’re trying hard to ensure that that rule does not become final.”

The state decision to petition the Forest Service for a Colorado rule began under the Republican administration of former Gov. Bill Owens but was continued by the Democratic administration of current Gov. Bill Ritter because of concern that the Clinton roadless rule would ultimately be tossed out and the state would not control its own roadless destiny.

Smith said it’s his understanding that the state’s Department of Natural Resources wants more time to work out the kinks in the Colorado roadless rule before it’s finalized. Mike King, deputy director for the Colorado Department of Natural Resources, did not immediately return a call requesting comment.

Webster urged the Ritter administration to push the Forest Service to slow down the state’s roadless rule process. A Forest Service public affairs specialist did not immediately provide comment for this story.