Coal and orange jump suits

At least now we have something to do with the rainy-day fund, and some people may need orange jump suits.

It just seemed like a big hole in the ground, and how could that be bad out on the empty prairie. It was four decades ago. Cities like Gillette, Wyoming, wouldn’t even be there now, maybe it would be a town, like a prairie-dog town, but not much in human economic terms.

All these big coal mining companies came in, like Arch and Alpha and Peabody. They promised thousands of jobs and infrastructure and a great source of tax money. They actually delivered for a long time, but there was a fatal flaw in the relationship, and this was self-bonding. When large natural-resource projects get under way, money has to be set aside for the eventual cleanup, to return the landscape to a condition that will once again be suitable for stock animals or wild game, and not polluting streams or sending toxic dust clouds sailing around the globe. Money set aside for cleanup is called bonding, but something happened differently in the development of huge open pit coal mines, especially in Wyoming.

The companies didn’t actually have to put up very much money, they just gave us their word that they would clean everything up; just like a Wyoming handshake. The bonding was tied to the stock value of the coal companies, and these were really big and impressive companies, so we would never have to worry. Lately, however, coal company stock values have plummeted.

Today, the above three companies are in chapter 11 bankruptcy. This gives them a chance to reorganize in such a way as to keep digging coal and remain more or less viable. They are doing this by laying off hundreds of workers, and giving huge cash bonuses to upper management. I’d give them something all right, like free room and board and orange jump suits. I haven’t met a Wyomingite who feels any differently.

At this point, the self-bonding shortfall in Wyoming stands at over $2 billion dollars. Incidentally, the state’s “rain-day fund” has about $1.8 billion dollars in it. It’s too bad we didn’t spend the money on something, because now it could be frozen to cover most of what is now Wyoming’s liability. And for this, coal-company executives are getting bonuses, and it’s looking more and more as though our state’s elective officials, and their appointees, are in collusion with them. It may be a little early to jump the gun with such conclusions, but things are starting to move awfully fast.

So why is it that Texas and Colorado moved early enough to avoid the same self-bonding trap that Wyoming is in? Here in Wyoming we are apparently governed by either incompetents or criminals. I don’t know which is worse. Retiring Congresswoman Cynthia Lummis is a member of the House Natural Resources Committee. This puts her in a better position to know the rules and procedures on self-bonding better than anyone in America. Could this have something to do with her retirement? First, though, she might have some questions to answer. And how about Governor Matt Mead’s administration? The governor jets all over Asia to find outlets for our coal, without any viable infrastructure to move the coal or any prospects of developing it, not to mention than nobody wants our coal.

Additionally, there are several factors leading to the zeroing out of coal’s value. One of them is not President Obama’s Clean Power Plan, because, after all, it hasn’t even started to take effect yet. The reasons are purely economic. Natural gas is also at give-away prices, and it’s cleaner and requires 80 percent fewer workers. By far the biggest reason, though, for coal’s demise, is cleaner and cheaper renewable energy, together with increases in fuel efficiency.

Really, it’s all too much to fight. The sooner Wyoming gets over the shock of its new economic reality, and possibly brings to justice what may be some major criminals in suits and ties, the sooner it can begin to pursue some realistic ways forward. As Garrison Keillor said of his imaginary Lake Wobegon, “Here in Lake Wobegon we have the ability to look reality right in the eye, and deny it.” Wyoming’s relationship with coal is this way, except it’s not imaginary, and there’s not much humor in it.