In the Rockies today, coal reigns.
First up, a proposed coal mine in British Columbia fiercely opposed by Montana will now get federal scrutiny.
Montana has long opposed the mountain-top removal mine proposed in the headwaters of the North Flathead River which flows into Flathead Lake, and now the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency said it will review the project, a review Montana officials fear will fall far short of what they want.
In Wyoming, just days after PacifiCorp pulled the plug on a proposed coal gasification project in the state, GasTech Inc. and British Petroleum announced they would launch an in-situ coal-gasification pilot project.
The project, at a site yet to be determined in the Powder River Basin, will pull energy out of coal seams underground in a manner that allows carbon dioxide to be sequestered.
In Nevada, where several coal-fired power plants are proposed, Sen. Harry Reid's effort to keep such plants out of the eastern portion of the state was felled by political pressure from his congressional counterparts.
Reid's amendment was dumped from the year-end budget bill after Nevada's Republican Sen. John Ensign and the state's two Republican congressmen marshaled opposition to the amendment.
