Alabama Coal Association, environmental groups feud over use of grant money

Alabama Coal Association, environmental groups feud over use of grant money

By Darren Epps

Wednesday, December 11, 2013 4:53 PM ET

The Alabama Coal Association on Dec. 10 ripped environmental organizations for accepting grant money from a California foundation to wage a so-called war on coal in Alabama, prompting the executive director of one conservation group to call the environmentalists' claims "misleading and inaccurate."

In a Dec. 9 letter to Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., Alabama Coal Association President George Barber said the state's coal industry was "under attack" by special interest groups who are being paid to shut down coal operations and "kill Alabama coal jobs."

Citing grant information disclosed by the California-based Energy Foundation, Barber said the foundation has awarded about $3 million to groups like the Southern Environmental Law Center, the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy and the Alabama Environmental Council over the past three years to fight coal and advance a renewable energy agenda in the Southeast, although the focus of the letter is clearly Alabama.

The Energy Foundation, which granted $76.2 million in 2012 for energy-related issues, according to a federal tax document, is also a contributor to the Sierra Club's Beyond Coal campaign.

Barber said he was writing Shelby to determine whether the groups have used public funds for similar purposes.

"At the same time these groups were being paid by the San Francisco-based Energy Foundation to pursue these goals, each of these groups was also a formal participant in a series of hearings at the Alabama Public Service Commission and engaged in aggressive communication to the public about the need to overhaul Alabama's regulatory process for natural gas and electrical utilities," Barber said in the letter.

In a Dec. 11 interview with SNL Energy, Southern Alliance for Clean Energy Executive Director Stephen Smith said his group did not receive any federal funds in 2013 and has never received federal funding for any work related to coal-fired power plants.

Smith said his group does receive money from the Energy Foundation, but that money is spread between six or seven states and addresses myriad energy issues.

"It is misleading to represent that Energy Foundation is giving the groups $3 million to fight coal in Alabama. That is factually inaccurate," Smith said.

"I know for a fact that a couple of other groups mentioned do not put that kind of money into Alabama. It's just misleading and inaccurate."

Smith acknowledged that U.S. coal is losing market share due to cheaper natural gas and not necessarily the efforts of the environmental community. He accused the Alabama Coal Association and Alabama Public Service Commission President Twinkle Cavanaugh, who released a statement criticizing "liberal out-of-state groups," of trying to take the focus off of what he calls Alabama Power Co.'s "uneconomical" support of coal-fired generation in the state. Alabama Power is a Southern Co. subsidiary. It is not the first time Cavanaugh has been critical of environmental groups.

"This is a desperate move by the Alabama Coal Association because they have been losing market share and are not able to compete against natural gas in the free market," Smith said. "They are literally whining about what's happening to them, but it is natural gas that's winning the hypothetical war on coal. This is Economics 101. The whole thing is ignorant, misinformed and misleading and taking the focus off Alabama Power spending increasing amounts of money to maintain and support increasingly inefficient and uneconomical coal production in the state."

Smith said his group uses funding to help spread public awareness about clean energy, energy efficiency and reducing the impact of the utility and transportation sectors on the environment.

Barber was not available to comment Dec. 11. Walter Energy Inc., which mostly produces metallurgical coal, and Drummond Coal Co. are two of the major coal producers in Alabama.

In the Dec. 10 release, the Alabama Coal Association called the flow of money from California to groups in Alabama "troubling."

"Despite repeating the lie that their participation in PSC hearings was not about coal, these groups took money from their anti-coal funders both before and during the hearings," Barber said. "The public deserves to know that the groups who claimed time and time again they were fighting for energy ratepayers were being paid millions to shut down coal-fired power plants and advance Barack Obama's war on coal. The records prove it."

Smith scoffed at the remark, saying the coal industry "has gotten far more from the federal government, through tax breaks and other things, than anything environmental groups have ever gotten."