So, I wonder how much the coal industry has contributed to his campaign chest?

What we really need is some multiple-national enforcement agency that can knock some sense into these countries that behave badly. Maybe a community of nation-states that can apply pressure to make these bad countries see the evil of their ways and start to behave for the benefit of all mankind.

I think Defazio has been in Congress too long and has turned to the dark side. Too bad his only challenger is a nut case.

It's amazing the tricks these guys in Congress will turn for a relatively minimal number of low skilled jobs in an election year. Jobs that are dependent on a non-renewable resource. You would think the folks down in Coos Bay would know better since they relied on the timber industry for so long, and it gutted their community when those jobs disappeared. The detrimental impact of this coal exporting on the local and global environment will be substantial. Mr. DeFazio needs to take a long hard look in the mirror on this one. Hopefully he knows it won't happen anyway due to the lawsuits and injunctions that are sure to follow any governmental approval of this disasterous plan.

Wrong. DeFazio recognizes that international law, to which the US is signatory, does not allow the Birkenstock crowd to unilaterally refuse to sell a commodity because they don't happen to like it.

Moreover, PRB coal is low-sulfur, low-mercury, and in short, the cleanest burning of fossil fuels (oil and natural gas are not fossil fuels). Now, given that South Korea is going to burn coal, and given that emissions are going to blow here, and given that if we somehow found a way to contravene international law so that we could all feel good about not selling PRB coal to them, what do you imagine would happen?

You want acid rain, folks? Play your games and force them (if you can) to buy high-sulfur coal from other countries. See how you like them emissions.

That's it for the options. Whether you like it or not is irrelevant.

Say what? You don't like mandatory recycling and composting? You don't want fluoride in your water? You don't like buried reservoirs?

An adult might choose to pick the battles.

You've lost on PRB coal already.

(oil and natural gas are not fossil fuels...

http://www.sciencedaily.com/articles/f/fossil_fuel.htm

http://www.energyquest.ca.gov/story/chapter08.html

John Winkelman---So, I wonder how much the coal industry has contributed to his campaign chest?
JK— I hope you realize that the opposition to coal export is lead by a multimillion dollar multinational corporation. Their next target is natural gas, then dams, leaving us with skyrocketing energy bills while they get rich on our misery.

The whole anti coal thing was started by Enron in an effort to promote natural gas and that effort continues today by other energy companies. This comment by Gail Combs is a nice summary of this history (I have not fact checked it):
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/08/17/apocalypse-not-i-love-the-smell-of-skepticism-in-the-morning/#comment-1060364

Besides, Is there something wrong with exporting minerals - we import a lot of minerals in return?

Thanks
JK

Wait till the wind ain't blowing, and the sun ain't shining and it's really cold out. Then what? Oh, and you don't have an income to pay the higher bill anyway.

I'll buy into this anti-coal deal, when Portland declares its independence from coal.

Maybe Portland has forgotten...of all of the major west coast cities, of virtually the entire Pacific Northwest, Portland is by far and long the most coal dependent city. Seattle gets nearly 90% of their power from renewable sources (mostly city owned dams in the Cascades). Most PNW cities are publicly owned and gets their power from the BPA and federal dams. Portland? Dependent upon the coal fired power plants of PGE and Pacific Power - including one PGE power plant in Boardman, built specifically to skirt environmental laws coming into force just months after completion of the plant.

Of course, there isn't any surplus of power elsewhere to replace Portland's appetite for coal...and I don't see Portland doing anything to reduce its power consumption...

"I'll buy into this anti-coal deal, when Portland declares its independence from coal."
JK---They'll turn off Boardman and let the shortage short itself out by electricity prices skyrocketing, just like Obama said.

Low income people will have to choose between lights/hot water and food for their kids. Isn't green wonderful?

Thanks
JK

I wonder if you're not missing the point. I see a couple of concerns. First, we might later wish we had kept deportable resources in the ground for our future needs. Second, running coal to and through our ports will make a mess.

Depletable. Thank you, auto-correct.

My family lived in the Coos Bay region for a couple of years and I have friends living in the region. I fully support Representative DeFazio in his support of a coal export terminal. God knows Coos Bay needs any and all economic activity it can get, including providing support for an extraction-based industry.

It is one thing to be against this, yet do you live or have lived in rural Oregon where entire communities were stripped of all their dignity and self-sufficiency once the Environmental Movement hit it's stride in the mid to late 1980s? Have you seen once proud, middle class families involved in the timber industry left destitute as Bay Area educated lawyers set up shop in Portland, OR and made it their mission to gut rural Oregon not only of it's timber-based middle class tax base, yet their sense of community? Have you seen the ravages of meth addiction affecting rural Oregon, which is indirectly caused by the State of Oregon and the US Federal Government dictating like Muammar Gaddafi what private industry can do on their own lands due to a species of owl who is now, ironically being wiped out by the Barred Owl?

Regardless, to be opposed to the storage of coal is downright absurd. If you want to stop the coal industry then move to Wyoming, West Virginia, and Kentucky and organize there. Don't kick the person who is already down.

Seattle gets nearly 90% of their power from renewable sources (mostly city owned dams in the Cascades).

True. And in Oregon, hydro-power is not considered a renewable energy source.

Oh, and Starbuck: fossil fuels are formed from dead plants and animals - like coal and peat. Oil and natural gas are abiological in origin.

Study more. Surf less.

So, Max, what are oil and gas made from on your planet?

The environment don't vote, Longshoremen do.

My planet is earth, Allan of the ad-hominem.

Coal and peat are produced over time by compression of plant materials.

Do you really believe that oil and natural gas come from dinosaurs?

If so, you need to research them a bit. They're by-products of earth mantle heat and compression, and are not in any way related to former living plants and/or dinosaurs.

Max, yes, oil & natura gas are abiotic. Scientific evidence both in the laboratory and field suggest it is a Fischer-Tropsch Type process. Natural petroleum composition matches the alkane (hydrocarbon) distribution of Fischer-Tropsch synthetic oil.

The best solution would be to build coal-fired electric generation plants, here, in the U. S., but Obama famously stated he would "bankrupt" any new coal-fired plants in the U. S., meanwhile giving G. E. permits for their coal-fired plants.

I guess Jeffrey R. Immelt, head of G. E., made enough contributions to Obama to get an exception.

Talk about crony capitalism!

Yes, water down the coal to prevent coal dust and take additional steps to minimize the externalities.

Portlanders, if you want to stop coal trains from coming to P town, then write you congress critter to back coal-fired plants IN THIS COUNTRY and not export it to China.

Solar and wind will not provide the electricity the country needs to grow economically.

What? You don't care about economic growth?

Look your fellow countrymen in the eye, those who are on governmental assistance or have lost their house and job, when you spout that type of thinking.

Export coal if necessary, but I'd rather have America get the electrical power (economic multiplier) than China.

Just to follow up on Abiotic Oil Theory with a couple of supporting documents:

Abiotic Oil - Abiogenic Petroleum Origin

http://origeminorganicadopetroleo.blogspot.com/2011/02/normal-0-21-false-false-false-pt-br-x.html

The above link is an excellent one document summary of Abiotic Oil Theory.

Also, a more historical account of Abiotic Oil Theory via Russian scientific research:

http://www.csun.edu/~vcgeo005/Energy.html

Read the first link. There is substantial scientific evidence oil is the result of geo-physical & chemical processes.

Well, gentlemen, not very bright on the alternative ideas for
a global warming future that is guaranteed. Why don't you educate yourselves and perform like Germany is doing (very
similar climate to Oregon's) advancing to alternative technologies
rapidly? They have one of the healthiest, job filled economies
right now while the US is further plunging into more wars and
deeper debt and suppressing the advancement of alternatives.
You want to educate yourselves, check out Stanford University
specialists and Mark Ruffalo's you tube video or go to the US
Steelworkers website and Robert Redford's advancing efforts.
Get your heads out of you know what.

DeFazio is deadly wrong.