Coal Country

Kentucky utility regulators could approve a rate increase for Louisville Gas & Electric and Kentucky Utilities customers. They’ve approved new power plants to meet the electricity demands of data centers. Customers may not have known about the hidden cost they’re paying for two coal plants.

Public anger is growing over rising electricity prices nationwide. In West Virginia, Appalachian Power customers have been paying hundreds of millions of dollars in hidden costs.

While shrugging off fossil fuel contributions to climate change, Kentucky GOP Sen. President Robert Stivers applauded President Donald Trump’s recent executive orders designed to boost the coal industry.

Kentucky’s state mineral, coal, is a rock and its state rock, Kentucky Agate, is a mineral. A bill that would swap the two to be geologically correct advanced out of a House committee Thursday.

A bill recently introduced in the Kentucky House aims to correct what one lawmaker calls an embarrassing mislabeling of the Commonwealth’s state rock and mineral.

A federal working group aimed at revitalizing coal communities over-promised how much money was available to Kentuckians by more than $200 billion.

The Ky. Senate approved a bill that would make it harder for utilities to retire coal-fired power plants. The utility industry says it will raise costs for ratepayers.

The Tennessee Valley Authority's four remaining coal plants could cause more than 2,000 premature deaths in the next decade, according to a new report from the Sierra Club. The report also found the federal utility has the largest mortality rate from coal burning of any parent company in the nation. TVA currently causes 241 premature deaths per year due to its contributions to soot pollution, also called fine particulate matter.

Utilities pushed back against Kentucky lawmakers calling for additional hurdles to prevent the retirement of coal-fired power plants. A Senate committee nonetheless passed the bill Wednesday.

The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled a Kentucky law discounting coal for in-state utilities likely violated constitutional protections for interstate commerce.