By:
By Eric Kelderman, Stateline.org Staff Writer
While coal is mined in 26 states, more than two-thirds of it comes from Wyoming, West Virginia, Kentucky and Pennsylvania. West Virginia employs the most miners, more than 20,000 in 2006. Nearly 18,000 coal miners worked in Kentucky that year and more than 5,800 in Wyoming.
Coal-producing states that supply nearly half of the nation’s electricity are feeling squeezed as efforts to combat global warming outpace technology needed to make the nation’s most abundant fossil fuel burn more cleanly.
In 2007, proposals for 59 coal plants were scrapped in 24 states, either by state regulators concerned about the effects of carbon-dioxide emissions or by power companies worried about the future costs of pollution, according to data from the Sierra Club.
Back in 2008, Gov. Beshear had an unhappy experience with casino gaming - in 2009, he looks ready to go at it again.
In this state capitol, the halls of power are whispering that the newly elected governor has lost his MoJo.
Governor Steve Beshear is now fighting to keep control of his new political powerbase while structuring a balanced budget for fiscal years 2009 and 2010. On both fronts, he is losing ground to the realities of modern state government.
Taking a page out of Governor John Y. Brown and Governor Wallace Wilkerson’s Manual of Working with the Legislators, Governor Beshear’s legislative team dropped the ball. Casino bill, as Plan A, is now all but dead in the water. And from all accounts with people close to the 1st and 3rd floors of the Capitol building, there is no Plan B.
Harry Moberly takes control of the budget
Steve Beshear won an impressive mandate from the Kentucky voters to change how business was conducted in Frankfort. Beshear had won a hard fought series of political battles within his own party and against the Republicans to gain the right to lead the state into the future.
By February 18,that hard fought mandate and political momentum was in shambles. Within 125 days of being elected, Governor Beshear had lost control of the political game in Frankfort.
LEGISLATIVE UPDATE:
March 12, 2008 ( Wednesday) House passes $18.7 billion dollar budget by a vote of 84 to 14. The vote Wednesdy evening was along party lines.
