Chris Hamilton, addressing the recent meeting of the West Virginia Legislature’s Joint Standing Committee on Energy and Manufacturing, said the EPA’s regulations on power plant emissions are expected to be released in the coming weeks.

“We’re on the eve of seeing a final carbon rule come out of EPA, in all probability by the end of this month, which is aimed directly at closing the remaining coal-fired electric utilities that exist within the United States,” he said.

The proposed rules, announced in May 2023, require coal and natural gas-fired electrical generation facilities to capture or dramatically reduce carbon emissions in the years ahead, and that would impact gas-fired combustion turbines, existing coal, oil and gas-fired steam generating units, and certain existing gas-fired combustion turbines.

There are nine coal-fired power plants remaining in West Virginia.

The state’s facilities are the among the most “modern, fully compliant plants you’ll find anywhere in the world,” Hamilton said.

“When those plants are fully operational, it accounts to close to 30 million tons of an annual coal market,” he said. “Right here, self-contained within our state’s borders.”

The rule has left coal industry stakeholders “very concerned about the future,” Hamilton said.

“We really are,” he said. “This carbon rule that’s going to come out, again, it is designed to close the remaining coal plants by requiring in — I believe it’s seven years — carbon sequestration and other carbon capture systems to be in place and to be operating.”

The final rule is likely to be challenged in court, Hamilton said.

“Hopefully,= that rule will not find its way through the promulgation process to be a court-upheld piece of legislation,” he said.

In 2022, coal-fired electric power plants accounted for 89% of West Virginia’s total net generation of electricity, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Hydroelectric power and wind energy contributed 7%, and natural gas provided about 4%.

Multiple West Virginia officials have criticized the EPA’s proposed rule.

“The president’s EPA announced earlier today new regulations that will cause essentially all of our coal-fired power plants — which generate 90% of our electricity in our state — to close by 2032,” said US Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., shortly after the proposed rule was released.

Capito predicted there would be “enormous legal challenges” to the measure.

US Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., called the rules “crazy — totally insane.”

“Why can’t this administration understand no means no? You’ve got to have it reliable,” he said. “Coal is basically dispatchable — it runs 24/7, OK? We have renewables. I’m for everything — I’m just not for taking off what I’ve got to have because you want something you want to have, but it doesn’t do that job.”

Rep. Carol Miller, R-W.Va., said the rules are “insulting to hard working West Virginians.”

“This overbearing EPA rule will kill domestic energy production and force jobs overseas, giving more power to our adversaries,” she said. “Energy security is national security, and I will do everything in my power to stop the Green New Deal from infiltrating the pro-American energy policies House Republicans are fighting for.”

As of the end of March, there were 10,194 employees working at underground mines in the state and another 3,235 employees working at surface mines, according to the West Virginia Office of Miner’s Health Safety and Training.

The OMHST data also includes 653 quarry workers, 1,562 “prep plant” employees and 39,838 independent contractors, for a total of 55,482 employees of the state’s mining industry.

In 2023, the state’s coal industry produced “about 86 million tons” of coal, according to Hamilton.

“That’s about 55% thermal, 45% metallurgical,” he said. “But the real surprising aspect of statistical base today is we are exporting about 50% of total output. The amount of thermal coal that we export is growing exponentially.”

According to the EIA’s historical data, which shows state energy production estimates from 1960 to 2020, West Virginia produced 118,944 thousand short tons of coal in 1960.

Production levels remained above 100,000 thousand short tons per year throughout the beginning 1970s, before falling to 95,433 thousand short tons in 1977 and 85,314 thousand short tons in 1978.

The state’s coal production peaked in the 1990s — 173,734 thousand short tons were produced in 1997 and 171,145 thousand short tons were produced in 1998.

While 2008 saw 157,805 thousand short tons mined, production began to decline, with 95,633 thousand short tons produced in 2015 and 67,380 thousand short tons produced in 2020.