Free Republic

Craig community leaders hosted a meeting Thursday at Moffat County High School to provide a brief update on the situation at Colowyo Coal Mine, answer questions and facilitate public comment on the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement’s environmental assessment. Ray Beck, Craig mayor, opened the gathering by telling the audience about the economic significance of Colowyo mine’s 220 jobs to Craig and Northwest Colorado. “This is not the time to slow down,” Beck said, emphasizing the importance of community feedback on the development of the mine’s new environmental assessment. When the OMSRE’s recommendation to approve mining plans for...

The community of Craig is holding its collective breath today, waiting on the feds to decide by midnight whether they will bother to challenge a court decision that threatens to shutter the Colowyo Mine. The Interior Department has gobbled up the entire period allotted to them to decide whether to appeal. We can only hope they have used this time wisely to decide in favor of the 200 plus workers whose jobs are on the line. And the lines in the proverbial sands have been clearly drawn. On one side is the radical environmental group WildEarth Guardians, who brought the...

GRANTS PASS -- A man who owns a gold-mining claim on federal land in southwestern Oregon asked for help defending it after U.S. authorities ordered him to stop work, but he is now telling his armed supporters to back off. Rick Barclay said Thursday that he hoped to prevent his fight with federal regulators from turning into the kind of high-profile standoff at a Nevada ranch last year. He initially called in a local chapter of constitutional activists known as the Oath Keepers because he thought the U.S. Bureau of Land Management would seize the equipment on his mining claim...

Sen.-elect Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) pledged on “Fox News Sunday” to be “extremely aggressive” in trying to rollback some regulations by the Environmental Protection Agency. “Extremely aggressive,” she said when asked how aggressive she would be in the Senate in trying to rollback some of the EPA regulations. “That is my promise to West Virginia. We have lost over the last two years, 5,000 jobs. Those are just coal jobs. “We had several thousand other miners who are what are called a warn notice, meaning they're potentially going to be losing their jobs. That doesn't even count the transportation job,...

(CNSNews.com) - The United Mine Workers of America held a rally Tuesday in Washington, D.C., to protest Environmental Protection Agency regulations that they claim would destroy the nation’s coal industry and coal-related jobs while doing nothing to address climate change. On Tuesday, current and retired workers convened at Freedom Plaza, then marched to EPA offices to protest EPA’s proposed Clean Power Plan, part of President Obama’s larger climate-change agenda, which aims to cut carbon pollution by imposing state-by-state emissions standards and fines for failure to meet those standards. CNSNews.com asked protesters, “If you could tell President Obama anything about these...

04/19/14 14:48 "What do you know about the Sun, if you've never been in mine!" Chairman of the Independent Trade Union of Miners of Ukraine Mykhailo Volynets called the statement of Russian President Vladimir Putin relatively Ukrainian miners cynical. During straight line with the Russians and residents of Crimea, Putin said that the sea on the peninsula is very dirty and there bathe drunken miners. "This is a cynical attitude brazen man who believes that he reckless. Miners - noble people and they just despise such a man," - said in comments Volinets TSN.ua about saying Putin tells Tsenzor.NET. In...

The US Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) published two new rulings on 30th January that aim to bring clarity as to which players in the virtual currency space will fall under the Bank Secrecy Act’s (BSA) definition of a money transmitter. FinCEN said that miners who mine virtual currency for their own use, as well as companies that purchase and sell convertible virtual currency solely as an investment aren’t subject to this law.

Elko County Commissioner Grant Gerber suggested the BLM and U.S. Forest Service are seeking comment on a regional sage-grouse conservation plan only to placate critics of the push to protect the greater sage grouse, which is found in 11 Western states, including Nevada, Utah, Idaho and Oregon. Ranchers, miners, energy developers and state officials fear restrictions on the use of public lands in sage grouse habitat would have deep economic consequences in the rural West. Former Republican Assemblyman John Carpenter said he believes the government is determined to list the chicken-sized game bird as part of a bigger strategy to...

The Associated Press CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Miners from West Virginia, Virginia and other states are joining 30 members of Congress in Washington, D.C., to rally against regulatory polices they say are killing jobs in coal country. Count on Coal's Rally for American Energy Jobs is Tuesday outside the U.S. Capitol. National Mining Association President Hal Quinn says the administration needs to hear from workers who produce the coal that creates 40 percent of the nation's electricity.

Bitcoin mining difficulty is increasing now exponentially with more and more ASIC miners coming online. Today the difficulty increased by 45% to 390 million. In a little over 2 days, difficulty level is predicted to increase by 300% to 1.6 billion. When I first started paying attention in May of this year, the difficulty level was only 10 million. Not sure what this will mean for bitcoins or the price theroof. I'm curious what those Freepers who mine or have bitcoins think?

The country which over the past decade is most synonymous with "financial innovation" of the less than desirable kind, such as hyperinflation, complete currency and economic collapse and wholesale property confiscation, has just taken financial central-planning brilliance to the next level and following dictator Robert Mugabe's "reelection" has announced plans to open a new and "racially exclusive" stock exchange, allowing blacks alone to trade. And not trade just anything, but shares of recently nationalized foreign companies, most of which are South African-owned miners. Or rather were, because following the most recent nationalization round, Zimbabwe would take a 51% stake in...

IL: Struggling Illinois coal industry excited about Romney By Jayette Bolinski / October 4, 2012 / The Illinois coal industry, struggling since the federal government cracked down on the burning of high-sulfur coal, is excited about Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who says he supports the industry. SPRINGFIELD — When it comes to Illinois coal, a lot is riding on the outcome of the November presidential election between Democrat President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney. To put it simply, if you’re for coal in Illinois, then you can’t be for Obama, said Phil Gonet, president of the Illinois...

Hundreds of coal miners and their families stand in line while waiting to attend a rally at the Century Mine near Beallsville, Ohio, for Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney Tuesday, Aug. 14, 2012.

<p>JOHANNESBURG — Frantic wives searched for missing loved ones, President Jacob Zuma rushed home from a regional summit and some miners vowed a fight to the death Friday as police finally announced the toll from the previous day's shooting by officers of striking platinum miners: 34 dead and 78 wounded.</p>

In obscure, blue-collar towns across Appalachia -- places that most Americans have never seen -- generations of coal miners have toiled away at back-breaking labor to power American homes and industry. Now, as many as 200,000 of them who dig, process, transport and burn America's most abundant fuel are threatened by EPA's latest coal rule. It imposes a standard for emissions that is all but impossible for many plants to meet. It requires coal-fired plants to release no more than 1,000 pounds of carbon dioxide per megawatt hour. The only means for many older plants to attain that standard is...

Bolivian President Evo Morales has abandoned a public event in the face of an angry protests over food shortages and price rises. Mr Morales was due to address a parade to commemorate a colonial-era uprising in the mining city of Oruro. But he and his team left the city to avoid a violent demonstration by miners throwing dynamite.There have also been protests in other Bolivian cities over the shortage of sugar and other basic foodstuffs.Mr Morales cut short his visit and returned to La Paz after protesters set off explosions close to where he was preparing to give a speech...

“All these people who got MBAs made a mistake,” according to Jim Rogers, the commodities investor, at the Reuters Investment Outlook Summit last month. “The City of London and Wall Street are not going to be great places to be in the next two or three decades. It’s going to be the people who produce real goods in charge – the farmers and the miners.” With commodities up 42pc since the beginning of last year, according to a basket tracked by Reuters, his words certainly ring true for 2010. An array of metals from gold to copper have hit record...

LA PAZ, Bolivia Bucking a global trend, leftist-led Bolivia is lowering its retirement age and nationalizing its pension funds. Bolivia's Congress approved legislation early Friday to make Bolivians eligible for full pensions at age 58. The country's 70,000 miners will get to retire two years earlier. The previous retirement age was 65 for men and 60 for women. Bolivia's decision to lower its retirement age runs counter to a global trend to raise retirement ages as life expectancies rise, birth rates drop and national treasuries come under strain from pension obligations. France raised its minimum retirement age to 62 last...

Greg and Angie Hall / The rescue operation in Chile On Wednesday, the world watched in anticipation as 33 Chilean miners finally began to emerge through a narrow shaft, drilled half a mile below the earth. The extraordinary man who helped save them, Drillers Supply International co-owner Greg Hall, is also training to become a deacon in the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston next February.EWTN News spoke to his wife Angelica Hall (with whom he runs Drillers Supply) on Wednesday, about her husband's service to the Church, and the role their Catholic faith had played in helping them plan the rescue.While...

<p>A backlash against China's powerful presence in the Zambian economy has been triggered by an incident in which 11 miners were shot by Chinese managers.</p> <p>Police said that the Chinese executives opened fire on workers protesting against poor pay and conditions at the Collum coal mine in the southern Sinazongwe province on Friday.</p>