Bush budget plan would eliminate funding for coal-to-fuel plant
KIMBERLY HEFLING
Associated Press
Posted on Mon, Feb. 05, 2007
dfw.com
WASHINGTON - President Bush's budget proposal contains an unpleasant surprise for backers of what has been billed as the nation's first plant that would convert waste coal into zero-sulfur diesel fuel and home-heating oil.
Buried inside the complex plan submitted to Congress on Monday was a line that would rescind a $100 million low interest loan promised to the company in 2003 for the plant that would be built in Schuylkill County.
Lawmakers and the company's president were scrambling to determine the implications for the $800-million project that has been under development for more than a decade.
"For them to suggest they are not going to hold up their end of the bargain is bizarre," John Rich Jr., president of Waste Management & Processors Inc., which was awarded the funding. "This was a sneak attack."
Rep. Tim Holden, D-Pa., whose district encompasses the proposed site of the plant, and Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., expressed opposition to the proposal and said options are under review.
"It's completely contrary to what the president said ... in the State of the Union address about our need to become energy independent and take advantage of our own natural resource," Holden said. "It sends a very contradictory message to the Congress."
Rich said he didn't know if the project would die without the money, but he said he plans to fight to keep the funding.
The plant would be built between an existing plant in West Mahanoy Township and the State Correctional Institution at Mahanoy. An impact study said it would burn 1.7 million tons of anthracite coal waste per year, creating a clear, zero-sulfur product called syngas to create diesel fuel, jet fuel and naphtha, a fuel and solvent. |
