Q: In 1996, the Virginia General Assembly passed a law providing tax credits to Virginia utilities for using coal mined in Virginia. In 2006, that law was renewed and expanded to provide a $3 per ton credit. Is there evidence that this law has increased consumption of Virginia coal by powerplants in the state? Is there evidence that it has increased coal production in Virginia?

Using the tools on Open Source Coal, it’s easy to see that the tax credit appears to have expanded the consumption of Virginia Coal by power plants in the state. In the graph below, note the dramatic increases in both 1996 and 2006:

Click image to view an interactive chart, or click here to see how the query was performed using the Power Plant Datafinder on Open Source Coal.

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Mining companies that produced at least 50% of their coal from Central Appalachian strip mines between January and September of 2008 are shown in red. Use the tools to see the proportion this represents of all Central Appalachian production (default) and Central Appalachian strip mine production. Production data supplied by the Mine Safety and Health Administration (view sources)

In late 2008, Bank of America (BoA) released a coal policy that included a groundbreaking commitment to phase out their financing of “companies whose predominant method of extracting coal is through mountain top removal.”

The fact that the language leaves a lot of room for interpretation was not lost on environmentalists, reporters or coal industry critics. For instance, does “predominant” imply a majority (more than 50% of total coal production), or a plurality (e.g., a company whose largest share of coal production is from mountaintop removal)?

Soon after the policy was announced, the National Mining Association (NMA) criticized the policy as a “PR Ploy” that would affect few if any companies. In all the confusion, groups ranging from Rainforest Action Network to NRDC to Appalachian Voices were bombarded by questions from reporters and allies about precisely which companies would be affected by the new policy. Since we didn’t have a ready answer, Appalachian Voices decided to hasten the development of a new coal database that is now available on OpenSourceCoal.org. The chart at the top of this page demonstrates how we used this database to provide answers to the BoA question.

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