Geology Reference
In-Depth Information
15.1. The Policy Setting for Coal Fires
Karen M. McCurdy
Major John Wesley Powell, second director of the
United States Geological Society, architect of scienti-
fic management of the public lands in the arid region.
Portrait painted in 1885 by Henry Ulke.
Courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, gift of Mary Powell.
Introduction
C
oal fires are common natural phenomena that increase in frequency and intensity as a result of mining and other
human actions, both intentional and inadvertent. Further, coal fires are a nontrivial producer of greenhouse gases
that negatively affect air quality and positively contribute to the global warming phenomenon. Scientists have
called for over a decade for government action. Why does not government respond?
In the United States in the nineteenth century, coal developed as a private industry, and coal fires were thus private
problems, unless they occurred on public lands. This response to why government is not responsive is overly
simplistic, and implies that policy making is static, when instead it is a dynamic process (Baumgartner and Jones,
2002). Aspects of coal mining were subsumed into the public sphere at different times beginning in the 1960s
following different policy templates
1
. This simple private
public distinction from the early twentieth century was
overridden in government action concerning coal producers when the issues were mining safety, air and watershed
pollution, surface-mine reclamation, or hazardous-waste mitigation, but not fires. Why are coal fires different? The
answer rests in political science not the geosciences and is related to when the policy issue, coal fires in our
instance, arose in the policy cycle, and the political setting in which the decision was made, or the balance of power
between the majority and minority parties within Congress as well as the power balance between the legislature and
the executive branch. These power balances are defined primarily by election results, but also by interest group
strength and influence, and public opinion.
-
The understanding that coal fires are a significant contributor to greenhouse gases emerged in the coal-geosciences
community in the late 1990s at about the same time as the broader scientific community was reaching consensus on
the contributing factors to global warming (Stracher et al. 2002; Broecker and Kuzig, 2008). This technical
information from the coal-research community indicating the importance of mitigating coal fires to assist in
reducing global warming was largely ignored by government officials, and even impugned by congressional
leaders such as Senator James Inhofe (Republican, Oklahoma)
2
. The reasons that both specific and general
scientific advice was unwelcome in the political system at the beginning of the twenty-first century were related
to the dynamic nature of the policy cycle. Demographic changes in Congress and the bureaucracy that resulted
1
Mining health and safety was subject to federal government oversight beginning in 1969 and reinforced by amendments in 1977. Coal mining
was further regulated beginning in 1970 under provisions of the Clean Air Act. The Surface Mining and Reclamation Act of 1977 extended the
public sphere into postmining activities, and mining runoff problems were subject to mitigation under the Superfund legislation, the
Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA), and the Superfund Amendments and
Reauthorization Act of 1986 (SARA). See McCurdy (2007a) for further explanation of these policy templates.
2
Senator Inhofe, chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works for the 108th and 109th Congresses (2003
-
2007) used
his leadership position to reject the basis for public discussion or action on global warming based on science. For example, speaking from the
Senate floor on September 25, 2006, Inhofe (2006, p. S10056) said:
“
Mr. President, I rise to speak today about the most media-hyped
environmental issue of all time, global warming.
”
