In 1989, my father participated in an Elderhostel at the University of Wyoming. The course covered a number of topics, including the geology of the state. At the time, Wyoming was America's top coal-producing state—and a quick check shows me that is still true. The following excerpt from Dad's story of his trip illustrates one reason why our bicameral federal Legislative Branch represents the people both in proportion to population and as individual and equal states. Sometimes I think our Senators forget these days that they are not mini-presidents trying to rule the country as a whole, but are in power to represent the interests of their own states. This is why each state, of large or small population, has equal representation in the Senate.
It is also a stark example of how powerful special interest groups can rule and overrule reason and common sense when laws are made on the national level.
[University of Wyoming geology professor] Jim McClurg is a specialist on the subject of coal, and while I do not doubt that the interest is real, it is also politically expedient, I am sure. Wyoming is the leading state in the production of coal and this is very important to the state. From Professor McClurg's remarks, it would appear that most of the national coal legislation is written with the Eastern coal producers in mind. Western coal is low in heating value relative to the Eastern coal, but it contains about one tenth the sulfur. Clean air legislation requires that the sulfur content of coal be reduced by fifty percent before it is burned. This is easily accomplished for the Eastern coals but is very difficult for the Western coals which are much cleaner originally than the "cleaned-up" Eastern coals.
Even the laws specifying how the land is to be reclaimed are slanted toward Eastern mining. We saw some reclaimed land which had, in accordance with the laws, small piles of rocks over the area for the benefit of game. So here they were, even though the land originally had no rocks on it at all. In addition, the laws had originally specified that the reclaimed land had to be seeded with a specific type of grass that will not grow in Wyoming.
Today I think primarily of the stranglehold Big Agriculture has on our food regulations, and the devastation the laws impose on small farms. And of the way our covid-era regulations favored large chain stores while driving small businesses to bankruptcy. I'm happy that national attention is finally being directed to the problem, at least in agriculture—but the Behemoth is powerful. Will it be a case of too little, too late?
