The Long Game

Written By Lane Boldman

Reflecting on the conclusion of the 2024 General Assembly, it was not uncommon to have constituents find the legislative process tedious or confusing, or be frustrated by the partisan nature of policy debates. In the short run, progress can indeed seem slow and tedious—especially when considering the urgency of the climate crisis. It remains to be seen what challenges Kentucky will face with new laws passed this session that slow our energy transition, such as this session’s Senate Bill 349.

However, this is a long game. So let’s take a minute to reflect on progress that has been made.

A recent article in Politico summed up the energy landscape: “…coal’s place in the economy has been in dramatic decline for years, displaced by cheap, abundant natural gas and the rise of renewable power as electricity producers bowed to demands to address climate change and the rising costs of abating pollution. The country’s coal output has dropped by half since peaking in 2008…”

Now, being in a state like Kentucky, where the coal industry still holds political significance, this fact may be harder to see. Which is why we should put this into a larger perspective:

  • At the beginning of this century, it was not certain to see a path from coal to clean. It was in 2001 when the coal industry had the full support of our Government through Dick Cheney’s energy task force, a less-than-transparent team that produced a fossil-favored national energy policy, informed by participants from Enron, the American Petroleum Institute, the U.S. Oil and Gas Association, mining interests and others. The resulting plan was to shepherd in a new generation of fossil-based power that would last for decades.

  • At the same time, the world was barely beginning to understand the implications of climate change. Al Gore’s film “An Inconvenient Truth” would not be seen until 2006. Hurricane Katrina would not be news until 2005.

  • Kentucky’s role came during that time: In March of 2001, Kentucky received an application for the proposed Thoroughbred Generating Station project— two 750 MW pulverized coal-burning plants. It was an intimidating time to take on the coal industry (this was a relatively new issue to the grassroots activist community at that time…I personally had just taken over a role chairing the local Sierra Club, who was an intervenor, and it was certainly new territory for myself and others). At this same period of time, mountains were being leveled for coal—500 mountains and 2000 miles of streams nationwide were destroyed by this practice that brought mountain communities together to “rise up” in opposition.

  • However—as the impacts of climate change increased, attitudes began to change. Citing the Thoroughbred plant as a threat to public health, the project became the longest permit appeal in Kentucky history. And after years of grassroots pressure and legal battles, the permit was ultimately remanded in 2008. It was one of the earliest successful challenges within this proposed “new generation” of fossil power and a massive “win” for Kentucky grassroots power. And citizen-based efforts such as Mountain Justice brought attention to the destruction of our mountains for cheap energy and the impact of this exploitation to mountain communities. These were just a few of instrumental events in an historic, grassroots transition away from coal-based energy.

Left: A climate rally in Washington D.C., April 2017. Right: A rally to stop Mountaintop Mining in April of 2013. Just some of many, many collective actions that have been taken over the years as we reflect on this past April’s Earth Month.

So where are we today?

  • As of this moment, 381 of the nation’s 530 coal plants have announced retirements.

  • In March of this year, New England announced that they will now be coal-free.

  • This past month, as we celebrated Earth Month, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced historic steps to reduce pollution from the power sector. They finalized many of the standards we've all been pushing so hard for, including first-of-their-kind carbon pollution standards for coal and new gas power plants, and stronger limits on mercury and air toxics, coal ash, and toxic wastewater. These were significant victories that were the culmination of decades of environmental advocacy work.

  • This year, Kentucky has received several federal grants to address climate change, including $62.4m through the Solar for All program, a demonstration project to capture carbon at the Cane Run Generating station. and several projects in the industrial sector to bring cleaner production methods to the state.

Recently I was able to celebrate these victories with many, many direct contributors to these efforts and it has been humbling to reflect on what has been achieved.

The role of land conservation should not be ignored:

While the work to protect our climate has largely been focused on energy, we must also acknowledge the significance of our land conservation programs to address climate change. This past month, we saw the dedication of the Cumberland Forest Wildlife Management Area in Bell, Knox and Leslie counties. The 55,000-acre conservation easement is the largest in state history and will preserve public access to the area for hunting and other activities. Senator Webb sponsored legislation and worked to secure state funding in 2022 and 2023 to acquire the easement. This is within a larger project of 253,000 acres—one of the largest-ever conservation efforts in the eastern United States—larger than Shenandoah and Acadia National Parks combined. Also, during the 2023 General Assembly, we saw $2 million in funding restored to the Kentucky Heritage Land Conservation Fund, plus additional funding to support trail towns and parks. And with the passage of House Bill 712 this session, we hope to see investments in our Kentucky river towns that will connect communities and improve their sustainable relationship to our rivers and waterways while at the same time address more nature-based solutions for climate chage.

How close are we to the end of this “long game”?

As you know, as always, there is still much more work to be done. And the impacts of climate change are now becoming even more frequent. So please take a moment to reflect on the tremendous changes you have already accomplished. But then let’s double-down to accelerate the pace, because we know we can.

There are more issues to tackle. A report last year by the Natural Resources Defense Council ranked the transportation policies of all 50 states based identifying the degree to which states have adopted policies and directed dollars toward improving equity, public health, and climate outcomes—placing Kentucky at the very bottom of the list. However, while we at least made some modest progress this session on excessive fees for hybrid cars and low-wattage public chargers, it is clear that there are more opportunities for policy improvements that can support building out that cleaner passenger car system, as well as mass transit, connected trail communities, complete streets initiatives and more.

So I hope during this past Earth Month, you were able to take some time to recognize the progress we have made, despite the challenges still before us.

KCC in the News

This past month, KCC was mentioned in several articles, linked below. We have been working closely on the proposed green aluminum smelter issue along with our allies at the Sustainable Aluminum Network to help build a greener economy to the region. We also appreciate the in-depth report in last week's Kentucky Lantern on the collective effort to expand land conservation funding—an issue that KCC has been working on with our land allies for some time now.
 

Lane Boldman
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