Talk about frivolous - and last ditch - lawsuits

Not that it happens all that often, but when I do think about coal country, I'm thinking Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Kentucky. Sure, I know Wyoming is a big coal mining state. But when I'm thinking Wyoming (not that it happens all that often) I'm thinking rich folks playing skier-rancher in Jackson Hole and cowboys. After all, that's a buckaroo on their license plate, not a grimy faced guy with black lung disease.

But in real life, Wyoming produces 40% of the coal mined in the US. That is, of course, 40% of a declining number. (By the way, Illinois - Land of Lincoln and the Windy City - is another big coal state. Not surprisingly, Massachusetts is not.) Even with exports factored in - and, when compared to domestic consumption, exports (although now in decline as well) have pretty much held their own - coal is on the downswing. Down over the last twenty years from making up half of US power consumption to about 20%. As, of course, it should be. Dirty, destructive, non-renewable. The only thing coal should be used for is making the face on a snowman. And stones do just as well. 

Anyway, many states are setting renewable energy goals, or taking other actions that will assist with the inevitable death of coal. The state of Washington has refused to allow developers to build a coal export dock on the Columbia River. And since Wyoming in landlocked, not being able to easily get their coal on a ship out of town doesn't help with their exports. 

Wyoming, with 5,000 people employed in the coal industry, isn't taking too kindly to those states that are putting the health and welfare of their citizens (and of the country and the world) by extracting themselves from coal.

So they're taking their case to court.

Last year, they joined with Montana - a fellow cowboy-coal state - and asked the Supreme Court to get involved in the Washington state case and let the export dock be built. (The Supremes haven't decided whether they're going to get involved. Too busy clamping down on voting rights and other things deemed important if we are going to be able to transition from democracy to autocracy. Meanwhile, the developers of the Washington state dock project have filed for bankruptcy.)

And Washington is looking to do more:

While most states pursue ways to boost renewable energy, Wyoming is doing the opposite with a new program aimed at propping up the dwindling coal industry by suing other states that block exports of Wyoming coal and cause Wyoming coal-fired power plants to shut down.

The law signed April 6 by Republican Gov. Mark Gordon creates a $1.2 million fund for an initiative that marks the latest attempt by state leaders to help coal in the state that accounts for the bulk of U.S. coal production, which is down by half since 2008.

"Wyoming is sending a message that it is prepared to bring litigation to protect her interests," Gordon spokesman Michael Pearlman said of the fund signed into law April 6. (Source: VOA News)

To my ears, that message sounds more like a last ditch attempt to try to hang onto coal when the world is moving away from it. Any lawsuits may turn out to be nothing but frivolous and wasteful. Sure, the $1.2 million allotted to the legal battles isn't a lot of money, but it's money that would be better spent on training coal miners for newer clean energy jobs. There's plenty of wind in Wyoming that can be harnessed, no?

But politicians gotta politick and Gordon's finger in the Wyoming political winds must be telling him that it's a good idea to take a page from the Trump playbook and plump for coal, even if coal is in a rapid death spiral. (Trump took 70% of the Wyoming vote in the 2020 election. Only two counties went for Biden: the county where the University of Wyoming is located, and the county where Jackson Hole sits.)

Hopes may be high in Wyoming that the suits will succeed, but legal scholars are dubious. Robert Percival is an environmental law professor at the University of Maryland. His view: "I don't think they have a legal leg to stand on."

But industry associations are all for it. Shawn Taylor of the Wyoming Rural Electric Association said:

"It's just kind of part and parcel of folks feeling that states and state agencies and entities outside Wyoming are having more of an impact on our energy resources than we do." 

Well, yeah. That's what happens when you persist in continuing on a stupid course. And, gee, the death of coal is going to happen whether Wyoming likes it or not. And that'll have a pretty big impact on the state's energy resources. 

And it's not like Wyoming's coal doesn't have a negative impact on other states. And it's not like these other states are doing any harm to Wyoming in terms of the health of its citizens, of its environment. Steering their power plants away from using coal harms only the short term paychecks of miners and the short term profits of the mine owners. I couldn't care less about the mine owners profits, but I do feel badly about miners losing their livelihoods, however terrible those livelihoods seem to me. 

So put that lawsuit money to use encouraging more wind farms to be built, and training miners to work in them. It's more likely to turn out to be money well spent than blowing it on frivolous, last ditch lawsuits.