Alaska parents may pay big fines for truant kids

Courts in Western Alaska are now fining parents if their children are truant. Kyle Hopkins writes for the Anchorage Daily News that parents can be fined hundreds, sometimes thousands, of dollars if their kid misses too many days of class, according to court records and rural school district officials in Alaska. The laws regarding truancy are not new, but whether parents get a ticket depends partly on where they live, reports Hopkins. The Anchorage school system has not pursued a truancy violation in the past 10 years. In some rural districts are increasingly turning to the mandatory-attendance laws in hopes of boosting test scores and slashing dropout rates, writes Hopkins.

Sgt. Duane Stone, a supervisor for the trooper post in Kotzebue, said,"[Fines are] not to get people into court. It's to get kids in school." A series of warnings and meetings with parents generally come first, and courts allow the families to reduce or avoid the fees simply by improving attendance. In northwest Alaska, one attendance counselor said she's found that working with the regional nonprofit agency to withhold public assistance payments to families is the single best way to improve attendance. (Read more)

Mississippi, North Dakota and Hawaii among states that benefit most from earmarks

Republican victories in November could mean the end of budget earmarks. Limiting pork will affect some states more than others, and rural states may be among the bigger losers. "Hawaii and North Dakota had more earmarks per capita than any other state in 2010, including Alaska and West Virginia, according to separate rankings from Taxpayers for Common Sense and Citizens Against Government Waste, two watchdog organizations," Pam Prah of Stateline reports. (Stateline illustration: iStockPhoto.com)

The biggest loser if earmarks are limited may be Mississippi, which "pulls in 11 times as much in earmarked funds as it sends back to Washington in taxes, according to an analysis from Brandon Arnold, director of government relations at the Cato Institute, a libertarian group," Prah writes. The University of Southern Mississippi recently received a half million dollars worth of earmarks for its cannabis eradication program, which is designed to help law enforcement officials detect indoor marijuana growing operations. That money was "tucked away in the federal Commerce, Justice and Science appropriations bill for fiscal year 2010," Prah writes.

"These states will still get federal funds" if an earmark ban goes through, said Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, "but no doubt about it, they will get dinged." Earmark supporters say a ban would "would rob lawmakers of their authority to set the spending and taxing policies of the nation, relinquishing it to the executive branch," Prah writes. Both sides of the argument agree a ban on earmarks is symbolic; they account for only about 1 percent of federal spending.

"Critics questioned the GOP's resolve to curb earmarks after House Republicans selected U.S. Rep. Hal Rogers of Kentucky to head the House Appropriations Committee in the next Congress," Prah writes. "Some in Congress call Rogers, who is credited with winning some 135 earmarks for his district, at a cost of $246 million over the past two year the 'Prince of Pork.'" Rogers, however, has spoken out in favor of the earmark ban. he represents the nation's most rural district, covering most of Appalachian Kentucky. (Read more)

N.Y. Times blasts GOP for killing mine safety bill

The New York Times' editorial board has been outspoken in favor of strengthening mine safety laws in the wake of the Upper Big Branch Mine disaster that killed 29 West Virginia miners in April. Now the newspaper has blasted congressional Republicans for blocking the legislation. "Republicans predictably shielded mine owners, citing warnings from the National Association of Manufacturers that the reform might drive up coal prices by expanding government authority and exposing mining companies to greater criminal penalties and damage litigation," the newspaper writes. "That is exactly what this perilously dangerous industry needs. Too many lives have already been lost for the sake of cheap coal."

The editorial continues, "The failure was even more egregious in the Senate, where strong reform proposals never saw the heat of debate as the Republican minority wielded its brute dogma of filibustering. . . . The owner of the Upper Big Branch, Massey Energy, can now rest easier. The defeated reform would have toughened enforcement against serial violators like Massey — it had 515 violations in 2009 — which routinely game the system and count on years of appeals to allow them to keep flouting the law." The Times concludes, "We fear reform is even less likely in the new Congress where pro-industry Republicans will have greater power. This year they warned against a “rush to judgment” about what precisely happened at Upper Big Branch. We know what happened, 29 people died. And Congress failed in its duty." (Read more)

Securing ethanol subsidies may be difficult

The ethanol industry earned a victory last week with the one-year extension of key federal subsidies, but securing those subsidies next year may be a tougher battle. "Industry officials say they're open to changing the way the government subsidizes producers next year, but there is disagreement within the industry about the best way to do it," Philip Brasher of the Des Moines Register reports. "A one-year extension of the subsidy buys the industry some time." With the federal deficit and an influx of conservative Republicans to Congress, the battle for those subsidies is expected to be more difficult in 2011.

"This allows us to have that debate next year but to figure out how we want to support the industry in a way that is fiscally responsible," said Bob Dinneen, president and CEO of the Renewable Fuels Association.  Nathanael Greene, an energy policy analyst for the Natural Resources Defense Council and a critic of corn ethanol, said the industry has "got to be nervous," given the deficit issue. "It doesn't look like corn ethanol is always going to get all it wants," Greene told Brasher.

"What happens in 2011 is up in the air," Brasher writes. "A rival trade group to the Renewable Fuels Association, called Growth Energy, has proposed to phase out the tax credit and shift the money into financing ethanol pipelines and retrofitting service stations to sell gasoline with higher ethanol content." RFA says "everything is on the table" in the discussion of how to continue federal support. "We have committed to reforming the tax incentive to make it more fiscally responsible, but it has to be one that works and one that encourages investment in new technologies and continues the evolution of the industry," Dinneen told Brasher. "I don't think we've seen a proposal out there yet that necessarily does all that." (Read more)

Newspaper series tells the stories of rural residents who are 'full of charisma and verve'

Inspired by a multimedia series from The New York Times, a rural Washington newspaper has launched its own multimedia series to highlight the often unsung residents of its community. The project, "Voices from the Walla Walla Valley," was designed by the Walla Walla Union-Bulletin and includes a story and slideshow about each Walla Walla resident profiled. "Last year, I fell in love with a New York Times multimedia series called 'One in 8 Million,'" Katrina Barlow of the Union-Bulletin explains on the project Web site. "Each weekly episode featured an everyday New Yorker, who shared something about his or her occupation or lifestyle. I realized that characters like those New Yorkers, who were so full of charisma and verve, lived in rural areas."

"The Walla Walla Valley is full of people who have remarkable stories," Barlow writes. "This is our attempt to highlight these untold stories." The project, which includes an episode every Sunday, will feature both longtime and new residents of the valley. A summary of each episode is included in Sunday print edition of the Union-Bulletin with the full story and video appearing on the newspaper's Web site. You can view the first three episodes of the series here or read more about the project from its founders here.

Reform of largest rural electric cooperative seems complete with conviction of ex-manager

UPDATE 12/15: A Gillespie County jury sentenced Fuelberg to probation and a $30,000 fine. "The jury's sentence does not state a term of probation, to be determined by state District Judge Dan Mills in January," Patrick George of the Austin-American Statesman reports. "In remarks from the bench, Mills suggested Fuelberg might have to pay $84,000 in restitution , and serve jail time as a condition of his probation." Fuelberg's attorney said he was pleased with the sentence and Assistant Attorney General Harry White added the verdict "sends a powerful message to the community that people in positions of trust will be held accountable for their actions when they violate that trust." (Read more)

The former manager of the nation's largest rural electric cooperative, who resigned two years ago, was convicted Friday of theft, money laundering and fiduciary misapplication of property, all third-degree felonies that could cost him two to 10 years in prison and $10,000.

Bennie Fuelberg, 66, now faces sentencing by the Gillespie County jury that reduced the charges from first-degree felonies. He was accused of "funneling hundreds of thousands of dollars in co-op members' money between 1996 and 2007 to his lobbyist brother" and the son of a former Pedernales Electric Cooperative board member, Patrick George of the Austin American-Statesman reports.

The utility came under scrutiny after customer-members member sued it in 2007, leading to "disclosures of large salaries, excessive expenditures and money-losing ventures at the co-op, which Fuelberg ran with little oversight by the well-compensated board of directors," George writes. "A reform movement" purged the entire board, Fuelberg and other officials. "Today, the co-op has levels of openness unheard of during Fuelberg's tenure, including democratic board elections and more open records." (Co-op map shows its service areas)

Co-op member Andy Wilson of Public Citizen Texas said the verdict is a warning. "This should send a chill down the spine of other corrupt co-op boards and managers across the country," he told the Statesman. "We can take back our co-ops, as we've done in Pedernales, and so can others across the country." (Read more)

Postal Service is closing offices and branches at a rate not seen for at least 15 years, Globe says

Squeezed by the recession and increasing use of the Internet to send documents once sent by mail, the U.S. Postal Service is closing post offices and branches at a rate "substantially steeper ... than at any time in the past 15 years," David Abel reports for The Boston Globe from Windsor, Mass., which lost its post office this year.

"For 113 years, the post office in Windsor brought people together in the small town in the Berkshires, providing a place to chitchat, do business, and send their precious parcels where they needed to go," Abel writes. "But this fall, to the dismay of many of the town’s 900 residents, the U.S. Postal Service closed its local branch, located most recently inside a general store." (Globe photo by Nancy Palmeri)

"This year there are 742 fewer post offices across the country than last year, more than three times the number of offices that were closed last year," Abel reports. (Read more) It's unclear whether his numbers include those where the USPS says it has only suspended service, a strategy it appears to be using to avoid the procedures required to close an office, we reported in February.

Rural detention center for youth may be closed

A juvenile justice facility in rural California is in danger of being closed, reports Marisa Lagos of the San Francisco Chronicle. The plan to close the Preston Youth Correctional Facility in rural Amador County would "kill an entire county," because it is one of the largest employers in the area, said Assemblywoman Alyson Huber, D-El Dorado Hills, who is fighting the closure.  (Photo by Brant Ward for the San Francisco Chronicle. Guard Dennis Miller surveys Preston in 2001.)

California is trying to "plug a $25.4 billion budget gap," writes Lagos, and closing Preston would save the state $30 million this fiscal year, officials estimate. Preston is the oldest of of five juvenile facilities in California and houses just 224 youths of 1,300 juvenile offenders in the state. Most of the youths there are hours away from their families. By most accounts, the building is in terrible condition.  Sumayyah Waheed, who runs a campaign at an Oakland civil rights group, called Preston a "dungeon" and rattled off a litany of incidents that have occurred there, including suicides and the use of Mace by guards. "Preston is also the most remote, the furthest away from youths' families," she said. "Everyone has to ask their family to travel ... it's really a burden."

The facility employs about 450 people in a county with just 38,000 residents and a 12.4 percent unemployment rate, reports Lagos. Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation spokesman Bill Sessa said closing Preston is a budget decision, noting that the Department of Juvenile Justice was ordered to cut $39 million from its budget this fiscal year and has already closed eight facilities this decade. The agency is working to place Preston's employees in other corrections facilities within communting distance. (Read more)

Ag secretary outlines strategies for reducing greenhouse gas emissions

U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack announced steps that his department is taking to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The U.S. Department of Agriculture will provide $15 million in Conservation Innovation Grants to promote carbon sequestration on private lands and test ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through large-scale demonstration projects. Vilsack's comments came at international climate talks in Cancun, Mexico, Amanda Peterka of Environment & Energy News reports. In a conference call with reporters Vilsack said he wanted to assure U.N. delegates that "we are taking steps to put our farmers and ranchers and forested-land owners in a better position" to reduce emissions.

The money provided by the USDA "will be administered through the department's Natural Resources Conservation Service and will also support farmers who carry out conservation measures associated with the projects," Peterka writes. "In another initiative to begin next year, USDA's Farm Service Agency will provide information to landowners on the carbon dioxide they save when they voluntarily plant trees through the farm bill's Conservation Reserve Program."

To launch the Carbon Net program, the USDA will draw from its electronic Hay Net service, which tracks farmers in need of hay and those with an excess. "The service will identify those in need of carbon credits and link them up with others who may be producing credits," Peterka writes. Vilsack explained "What we're doing here is not establishing credits. We're creating demonstration projects that will allow us to better measure and more accurately measure the benefits that are accrued by certain practices." (Read more)

New Web site to help agricultural communities prepare for disaster

A recently launched Web site from the Center for Food Security and Public Health at Iowa State University aims to help rural communities prepare for hazardous events. By preparing for those events, the center hopes to help communities prevent or minimize the impact on human and animal health as well as crop production or property damage, says the Web site. The center writes, "Agricultural communities are at risk for a number of hazardous or emergency situations, such as natural disasters or emerging diseases, as well as man-made or technological hazards (e.g., agrochemical spills, bioterrorism). Any of these situations can greatly impact the individuals, farms and their commodities, as well as businesses in the affected areas."

"This Web site houses a database of numerous resources to help citizens of rural agricultural communities – individuals, farmers and producers, businesses – prepare for and recover from a number of natural and man-made threats," the center writes. The Web site is divided into five sections: natural disasters, biological threats, technological man-made threats, general preparedness and all resources. The center also provides links for contacting federal and state officials and submitting your own resources. You can access the Web site at http://www.prep4agthreats.org/.

Ethanol subsidy and tariff to be extended

Congressional lawmakers have reached an agreement to extend the 45 cents per gallon subsidy for ethanol for one year and continue a tariff on the imports of the biofuel. The tariff will remain at 54 cents per gallon through 2011, said Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley. The provisions would be included in tax legislation worked out with the White House, Philip Brasher of the Des Moines Register reports. "The bill also would resurrect and extend for another year the $1-a-gallon subsidy for biodiesel that expired at the end of 2009," Brasher writes.

Grassley on Thursday announced the provisions would be included in the tax bill but the level of each provision was still uncertain. "The ethanol subsidy and tariff were due to expire at the end of this month," Brasher writes. Extending these provisions "will boost jobs and investment in the alternative energy sector, exactly when the economy needs a real shot in the arm," Grassley said. Critics of the growing federal deficit had targeted the subsidy and tariff as a move to cut deficit spending. (Read more)

Massey foremen sentenced to probation for role in fire that killed two miners at Aracoma

Four Massey Energy foremen were sentenced Thursday to a year of probation and a total of $7,000 in fines for their role in the 2006 fire that killed two workers at Massey's Aracoma Alma No. 1 Mine in Logan County, W.V. The foremen, Donald R. Hagy, Terry L. Shadd, Edward R. Ellis and Michael A. Plumley, admitted to not conducting required mine-evacuation drills prior to the fire, Ken Ward Jr. of The Charleston Gazette reports. "Family members of the foremen filled one side of the courtroom, and [U.S. District Court Judge John T.] Copenhaver said he had received letters from their friends, neighbors and pastors speaking up for their character," Ward writes.

Bruce Stanley, an attorney for the two miners' widows, told Copenhaver his clients were not looking for the judge to be overly harsh in sentencing. "The true culpability in this matter rests in a higher position of authority than the four gentlemen in this courtroom," Stanley said. The two widows, Delorice Bragg and Freda Hatfield, spoke out in early 2009 "against a deal in which Massey's Aracoma Coal Co. subsidiary pleaded guilty to 10 mine safety crimes and paid a $2.5 million fine, while prosecutors agreed they would not pursue any charges against the Massey parent company or any of its officers or employees," Ward writes. (Read more)

Editor and one of five grant-funded reporters in Ark. promote community journalism at Ark. State

Write for Arkansas, a grant-funded program to place an additional reporter at five community newspapers in the state, has as a secondary goal to raise awareness of the need for trained, professional journalists to cover local issues. "To that end, Write for Arkansas reporter Sarah Morris of the Stuttgart Daily Leader and her editor, Lesley Valadez, traveled to Arkansas State University last month to speak to first-year journalism students about the field of community journalism," The Arkansas Publisher Weekly reports today.

Morris said their main message was “Journalism is still alive and the need for community reporting is still there.” She and Valadez gave students advice on advancing their careers in journalism. “We talked about how internships and multimedia skills were also important in grabbing the jobs,” Morris said.

Reporters in the program "plan to seek additional opportunities to reach out to student journalists and encourage a future generation of community reporters," the story reports. In addition to the Leader, the program has funded reporters at the Texarkana Gazette, The Courier of Russellville, Areawide Media of Salem and the Madison County Record. The program was started by the Arkansas Community Foundation and has a $252,000 matching grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

Mine safety bill defeated, but funding approved

The House of Representatives on Thursday voted down a new version of the long-stalled mine safety bill even after its sponsors removed language that would expand Occupational Safety and Health Administration enforcement authority at all workplaces. "The mine safety bill, which would improve federal regulators' power to crack down on unsafe coal mining operations, failed to advance on the suspensions calendar, with a two-thirds majority required for passage," Elana Schor of Environment & Energy News reports. "The 214-193 vote on the bill, introduced last week by House Education and Labor Chairman George Miller (D-Calif.), came with one Republican voting in favor and 27 Democrats opposed."

Republicans and business groups had raised concerns about the added power the original bill would have given OSHA, but after removing that language, the House bill likely would have faced a delay in the Senate if it had been passed. "Republicans in the upper chamber recently objected to an attempt to unanimously clear the Senate version of the bill, named for the late Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.), charging Democrats with abandoning bipartisan talks on a compromise," Schor writes.

Miller said he was pleased that a majority of the House backed the bill, but criticized. Republicans for "turn[ing] their backs on those who go underground every day, 600 of whom who have died in the last decade." Minnesota Republican Rep. John Kline countered that the Democrats set up a failed vote by putting the bill on the suspensions calendar. "Republicans will continue to hold accountable the agency charged with enforcing the law and use the findings of the ongoing investigations to ensure any future legislative or regulatory steps to protect miners are well-informed," said Kline. (Read more, subscription required)

While the House defeated the mine safety package, it did approve additional mine safety money in a spending bill, Ken Ward Jr. of The Charleston Gazette reports on his Coal Tattoo blog. California Democratic Miller noted that the full-year continuing appropriations act includes "$5.3 million for the Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission, which will enable the agency to hire an additional ten administrative law judges to hear cases." (Read more)

States look to private sector for help attracting businesses; would it help or hurt rural areas?

Several Republican gubernatorial victors made campaign promises about privatizing various sectors of state government, but the devil is in the details, Melissa Maynard of Stateline.org reports. Incoming Ohio Republican Gov. John Kasich proposed privatizing the Ohio Development Department, saying, "The days of trying to connect to business leaders through bureaucrats are over." Govs.-elect Terry Branstad of Iowa, Jan Brewer of Arizona and Scott Walker of Wisconsin also made similar privatization campaign promises designed to spur economic development.

"The question of how to empower business leaders to play a more meaningful role in state economic development efforts without sacrificing the accountability and transparency with which public funds are used is hardly a new one," Maynard writes. "A number of states — including Florida, Indiana, Michigan, Texas, Utah and Virginia — have privatized some aspects of their economic development functions in recent years, with mixed results." The structures of each state's programs may be different but "the governing principle behind all of these approaches is the same: Let local business leaders, rather than bureaucrats, take the lead on state economic development and marketing efforts," Maynard writes.

"This is one of those skill sets that government just doesn’t have as a core competency in-house," insists Leonard Gilroy, director of government reform for the Reason Foundation, a free-market think tank. Texas has enjoyed some success with its public-private partnership with nonprofit TexasOne, which is able to use strategies like sporting-event tickets to attract businesses that state agencies can't. Other states have run into some trouble. In Michigan the "semi-privatized Michigan Economic Development Corp. last year awarded $9.1 million in tax credits to a convicted embezzler," Maynard writes. (Read more)

Privatization proposals may pose a risk for rural areas. "States should constantly evaluate and adapt their economic-development programs to changes in the private sector, but I feel obliged to raise a caution flag about privatization: It has the potential to shortchange rural communities, because most business consultants and perceived 'experts' are urbanites and may not be familiar with the distinct challenges and opportunities in rural areas," said Al Cross, the director of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues.

Meanwhile, a nonprofit group has issued a report showing how well each state does at disclosing information about economic-development subsidies. Good Jobs First "seeks to shed light on how well or poorly economic subsidies work," Steven Greenhouse reports for The New York Times. Illinois was rated best, followed by Wisconsin and North Carolina; 13 states got Fs. "The study links to AccountableUSA, a new set of Web pages about every state that contains an overview of each state’s subsidy practices as well as profiles of major subsidy deals, Greenhouse reports.

What were most important food stories of 2010? Rural Web site takes issue with magazine's list

The Atlantic recently published its list of the top 10 food stories of 2010, but something important was missing: rural America. "The only farmer (and only farm) the magazine mentions is First Lady Michelle Obama and her White House garden," Bill Bishop and Richard Oswald write for the Daily Yonder. "When it comes to 'food policy,' according to The Atlantic, rural America doesn’t exist." Bishop and Oswald developed their own list of the 10 most important food stories of 2010 and agreed on just three stories from the Atlantic's list: the egg recall, the battle over genetically modified food and the ongoing debate over the food safety bill.

Headlining the Yonder's list of most important food stories is the new proposed regulations that would remake the relationship between livestock raisers and meat packers issued by the federal Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration.The Yonder also includes peak phosphorus (we're running out of it), food monopolies, seed-industry worries, the dairy implosion, land prices, the rural grocery crisis, Gulf Coast fishing, the Humane Society of the United States war with livestock producers and meat processors, and speculation in grain and grain elevators.

"It’s probably not too much of a surprise that there is little overlap between The Atlantic's list and The Yonder," Bishop and Oswald write. "The Atlantic’s list of important stories includes 'foraging,' for example." The Atlantic's first story was "The Meat Trend," which associate editor Daniel Fromson explains as "foodie passion for cured meats, braised veal cheeks, jammy bone marrow, and do-it-yourself butchering." Highlighting the rural/urban divide, Bishop and Oswald conclude of the meat trend: "In much of Yonder, butchering and curing meat isn’t so much a trend as what you do in the fall." (Read more)

Wild-horse preserve idea worries Nev. ranchers

Billionaire T. Boone Pickens has made headlines for his positions on renewable energy and natural gas, but now his wife is making news for a controversial proposal to protect wild horses. Madeleine Pickens "caused an uproar when she proposed the Bureau of Land Management let her fence off more than 500,000 acres of federal land to create a sanctuary for wild horses near a 14,000-acre ranch she bought in October," Jim Carlton of The Wall Street Journal reports. Nevada cattle ranchers worry such a sanctuary would push them off the range because much of the state's 450,000 cattle graze on federal land. (WSJ graphic)

If the plan went through, "something has got to give, and it will be cattle," Robin Boies, a rancher who grazes her cattle on federal land adjacent to her Nevada ranch, told Carlton. Hunters and off-road enthusiasts also oppose the plan because they fear it would restrict them from the popular recreation area. "Pickens' ranch includes the rights to graze stock on surrounding federal land in return for payments to the government and general upkeep of the land," Carlton writes. "Her proposed mustang monument would be on these federal lands around her ranch."

Pickens told Carlton she wants to buy enough other Nevada ranches with grazing rights on federal lands to create sanctuaries for as many as 10,000 horses, adding "I'm sorry, but there's no putting this back in the bag." The preserve would be open to the public, Pickens said, and while she acknowledged local support would be nice she noted she has the support of the BLM. Some locals do support the plan, hoping it would bring tourists to the area. At a Nov. 15 meeting, Pickens told one of her local supporters "I don't know how anything bad can come of it. As long as I'm alive, it won't." (Read more)

W.Va. coal-industry group opposes Obama strategy to end black-lung disease

The Obama administration's plan to end black-lung disease was met with criticism from the West Virgina coal industry during the first public hearing on the proposal. No one disputed the need for stronger efforts to eradicate black lung, but some faulted the strategy, Taylor Kuykendall of The Register-Herald in Beckley reports.

"We strongly object to the proposal in its current form," Chris Hamilton, senior vice president of the West Virginia Coal Association, said. He said it was "fraught with technical and operational impracticalities, misapplication of dust control technologies" and "relies on an inappropriate, convoluted or uneven enforcement scheme." Hamiltion also said he was concerned that the proposal circumvented Congress and its efforts to regulate mine safety and eradicate black lung, or coal workers' pneumoconiosis. The Mine Safety and Health Administration's actions "represent a departure from the cooperative approach deemed necessary to eradicate CWP from within our industry," Hamilton said.

Hamilton lumped the black lung proposal, which would cut the allowable level of respirable coal dust in mines by half, with environmental regulations that he called the Obama administration's attack on the coal industry. "We would hope that this rule, as proposed, is not part of that strategy, as some submit that it clearly is," Hamilton said.

The proposal did receive some support at the meeting. Joe Massie, retired coal miner and president of the National Black Lung Association, and the Fayette County Black Lung Association support any changes MSHA can make to prevent miners from getting black lung, Kuykendall writes. The meeting was held at the National Mine Health and Safety Academy in Beaver, W.Va. Joseph Main, assistant secretary of labor for mine safety, said the proposal would "significantly improve health protections for underground and surface coal miners." (Read more)

Ark. to require disclosure of fracking chemicals

In Arkansas, the Oil and Gas Commission has decided to require companies drilling in the Fayetteville Shale to disclose the chemicals they are using when fracking for natural gas, reports Kelly MacNeil for KUAR. The agency is requiring that companies disclose chemicals they plan to use and list the names of additives actually in use.

The state wants "to ensure they know what those chemicals are, so if there is a potential contamination in that particular water well, they’d be able to know what the chemicals are and be able to test for that particular chemical," said Oil and Gas director Larry Bengal. Arkansas is one of the first states to require drilling companies to disclose what chemicals they are using. The additives will be posted on the commission's Web site on a well-by-well basis. (Read more)

Alison Sider reports for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette that the Fayetteville Shale formation, which runs from Northwest Arkansas to the Mississippi River, has been actively drilled for the past six years. "It seems like Arkansas is moving in the direction where everybody ultimately will go," said Amy Mall, a senior policy analyst with the National Resources Defense Council, a New York-based environmental advocacy group.

The most recent version of the rule requires a more complete listing of the chemicals than the previous rule. Bengal said the newer rule is intended to report 100 percent of the chemicals used for drilling. In order to protect the proprietary nature of the fluids, Sider reports, companies will be able to ask that some chemical names be withheld as trade secrets, if the director approves the exemption. In this case, chemical family names will be released instead. (Read more, subscription required)

Fracking fall-out continues in Texas

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has overstepped Texas regulators by issuing an emergency order against a gas driller. The EPA is accusing the company of contaminating an aquifer and giving it 48 hours to provide clean drinking water to affected residents. "The order is unprecedented in Texas, partly because in issuing it the federal body overstepped the state agency responsible for overseeing gas and oil drilling in Texas," Ramit Plushnick-Masti of The Associated Press reports. "The EPA's move could ratchet up a bitter fight between Texas and the EPA that has evolved in the past year from a dispute over environmental issues into a pitched battle over states rights."

The order was issued against Range Resources of Fort Worth because EPA regional director Al Armendariz said he felt "the Texas Railroad Commission was not responding quickly enough to contamination found in two water wells belonging to Parker County residents in North Texas," Plushnick-Masti writes. Range Resources was using hydraulic fracturing, in which thousands of gallons of water and other chemicals are injected into a well to release natural gas from shale formations, at their drilling operations. The drinking water contamination is believed to be the first possibly associated with fracking operations in Texas, AP reports.

Armendariz said "the Railroad Commission had said it would be 'premature' to issue an emergency order regarding the contamination and asked for more time to evaluate the data," Plushnick-Masti writes. The EPA inspected the wells with the Railroad Commission in August after receiving complaints from locals who were having problems with their drinking water. The agency found high levels of explosive methane, as well as other contaminants, including cancer-causing benzene, AP reports. "We thought what we found in the homes was alarming," Armendariz told AP. (Read more)