Hillbilly Report

Who Are They Ernie Fletcher? Did Peabody Drop A little Cash In Your Secret Fund? Youtube Video.

Hillbilly Report
Glendale, Kentucky
http://www.hillbillyreport.com/
June 22, 2007

Ernie Fletcher Calls Special Session To Subsidize Peabody’s Boondoggle With Our Tax Dollars.

Hillbilly Report
Glendale, Kentucky
http://www.hillbillyreport.com/
June 21, 2007
For information about coal to liquid click here.
For information about Peabody Energy Corp. click here.
Peabody Energy Corp. share holders want our tax dollars to help them make money with little or no risk.
Rick Bowen of Peabody Energy Corp. wrote the following to Gov. Ernie Fletcher.
“This summer, Peabody Energy intends to make a major decision regarding development of this project and its location. In doing so, Peabody must protect our shareholders by minimizing the cost of the project.”
A plan unveiled last week at a state energy subcommittee hearing in Muhlenberg County would offer $315 million in tax incentives over 25 years to a $2.5 billion coal-to-liquid plant.
I suggest it’s not Governor Ernie Fletcher’s job to protect Peabody share holders with my tax dollars. If I want to invest in Peabody Energy Corp., I’ll do it in the free market and Governor Ernie Fletcher and all his pals in Frankfort are free to do the same. 
How can this Governor, in good conscience, even think about subsidizing Peabody Energy Corp. with our tax dollars when people in Pike County, Kentucky still have to carry water in 5 gallon buckets?
If Peabody Energy Corp. is so hard up for money, the Governor might consider giving Peabody some of the money he has in his secret legal defense fund!!!!   

Limp Brain Senator Jim Bunning’s Coal To Liquid Amendment 1628 Goes Down In Flames In Senate Vote!

Hillbilly Report
Glendale, Kentucky
http://www.hillbillyreport.com/
June 19, 2007, 2007
The most toothless Senator Mitch McConnell and limp brain Senator Jim Bunning lose another one as the boondoggle coal to liquid Amendment 1628 goes up in flames with a 39-55 Senate vote.

Coal To Liquid, Or As We Know It Here In Kentucky Coal To Oil, Or A Real National Energy Effort Such As The Manhattan Project Or JFK’s Man To The Moon Project?

Hillbilly Report
Glendale, Kentucky
http://www.hillbillyreport.com/
June 18, 2007
The United States of America doesn’t need another Dick Cheney Energy Task Force. We don’t need a money grubbing coal company like Peabody to take our tax dollars and give us CTL.
The United States of America needs some real leadership. We did it in 1941 with the Manhattan Project. We did it again in 1961 – JFK “I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind or more important in the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish.”
America is craving for that kind of leadership and that kind of challenge. The likes of Halliburton, Exxon, Peabody, etc. have no real interest or incentive to take us to where we need to be, when it comes to energy efficiency or energy independence and they need to be left out of the process.
   
MyDD Matt Stoller
Coal industry lobbying has reached a fever pitch. The industry spent $6 million on federal lobbying in 2005 and 2006, three times what it spent each year from 2000 through 2004, according to calculations by Politicalmoneyline.com.
Peabody, which has quadrupled its annual lobbying budget to about $2 million since 2004, recently hired Richard A. Gephardt, the Missouri Democrat who was House majority leader from 1989 to 1995 and a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1988 and 2004, to help make its case in Congress.
One of the most vociferous champions of coal-to-liquid fuels is the Southern States Energy Board, a group organized by governors from 16 states. Last year, the group published a study, which cost $500,000, that concluded that coal-to-liquid fuel could and should replace almost one-third of imported oil by 2030.
As it happens, the coal industry supplied much of the financing for the study and subsequent marketing. Peabody Energy contributed about $150,000 and the National Mining Association added $50,000, officials at the Southern States Energy Board said.
The inducements under discussion would not only subsidize up to 10 coal-to-liquid plants, but also guarantee a minimum market through long-term contracts with the Air Force and minimum prices for at least some producers.
"There is financial uncertainty, which is inhibiting the flow of private capital into the construction of coal-to-liquid facilities," said Mr. Boucher, who supports most of the proposals and is drafting portions of the energy bill.
In addition to construction loan guarantees, Mr. Boucher would protect the first six liquid plants from drops in energy prices. If oil prices fell below about $40 a barrel, the government would automatically grant loans to the first six plants that make coal-based fuels. If oil prices climbed to $80 a barrel, companies would have to pay a surcharge to the government.
Peabody is one of the most aggressive union-busting outfits out there.  Over the last fifteen years, the company systematically shut down union mines  and replaced production with non-union mines.  Right now, there's a Justice at Peabody campaign aimed at mines in Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Tennessee and West Virginia.

John Kerry – BMG
“We weren't elected to be like Republican Congresses of the past, only a little more progressive. No -- if we merely tinker around the edges of energy policy or climate change, or write an energy bill indistinguishable from the ones we criticized Republicans for passing--then we have not earned our majority. The energy bill the last Congress passed was a hollow exercise masquerading as a new direction while giving the majority of the spoils to the same old special interests.  It had no guiding national goal, no tough decisions, no change in priorities--just a collection of logrolling, back-scratching subsidies for any industry with the clout to get a seat at the table and a share of the pork.”