CHARLESTON -- Coal may keep the lights on for about half the country, but in West Virginia it also keeps politicians in office.

During this year's campaign, Republicans and Democrats alike jockeyed to prove their devotion to the fuel source, with politicians from both parties running TV ads in which they held up lumps of coal like good-luck talismans.

It might therefore seem foolhardy to give the other party an opening by disavowing any aspect of the industry, but Danny Chiotos doesn't see it that way.

Chiotos is the head of the environmental caucus of the West Virginia Young Democrats. He played a crucial role in getting that group to pass a resolution earlier this year calling for an end to new mountaintop removal permits, thereby opening a new chapter in one of the state's most contentious debates.

"There's a growing part of the party that wants to stand up for environmental jobs and deep mining jobs that would come from a moratorium on mountaintop removal mining," Chiotos said.

The growing visibility of the environmental caucus doesn't end there. The group also joined calls in October for Bayer to remove stockpiles of the chemicals methyl isocyanate and phosgene from its Bayer CropScience plant in Institute.

But in a state where cars with "I Love Mountains" bumper stickers may be parked next to cars with "Friends of Coal" stickers at the same Democratic Party rallies, nothing gets attention quite like surface mining.

Unlike underground mining, mountaintop removal is visibly destructive. Coal companies blast apart ridgetops to expose multiple coal seams so they can be mined simultaneously. It's often cheaper and faster than digging tunnels, and the industry argues it's sometimes the only way to mine the coal.

West Virginia is the nation's second-largest coal producing state behind Wyoming, and the National Mining Association estimates mountaintop removal accounts for about one-third of the state's production.

Given those facts, other members of the party -- which has long been allied with the United Mine Workers, a supporter of surface mining -- regarded the Young Democrats' resolution as misguided at best.

"It's not just the miners, we're talking about the entire economic engine in coal counties," said House Majority Whip Mike Caputo, a Marion County delegate who's also a UMW official.

Caputo helped narrowly defeat the resolution when it came up at the Democrats' convention during the summer.

"We don't want to give our enemies ammunition to say the Democratic Party is trying to put miners out of work," he said.

Dr. Doug McKinney, chairman of the state Republican Party, said the Democrats' environmentalism would have to be more sustained and visible before such a distinction appears evident to voters.

"I think they're trying to flex muscles they don't have," he said of the party's environmentalists.

The question isn't just a matter of inter-party politics, given the Democrats' domination of state government. The party has held majorities in both houses of the Legislature since the Great Depression; it controls four of five seats on the state Supreme Court; the governor is a Democrat, along with all other constitutional officers; and four of five members of the state's congressional delegation are Democrats.

Partly as a result, the Democratic Party has become home to a broad diversity of viewpoints, in which Chiotos and Caputo can work together to elect members of their party while disagreeing on major issues like mountaintop removal.

Members of some environmentalist groups, which have long opposed mountaintop removal mining, are hopeful, though, that the future of the party looks more like Chiotos. To get anything done in West Virginia politics, after all, means winning over the Democrats.

"In West Virginia and other states that have largely been dependent on coal, candidates feel they have to make a nod toward these pie in the sky ideas about clean coal technology," said Vivian Stockman, project coordinator for the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition.

As the rest of the country becomes concerned about climate change and national politicians push alternate sources of energy, though, she sees that changing.

"It's fair to say more of the higher-ups in the Democratic Party are becoming more concerned because they're finally hearing their folks locally have been saying for a long time," she said.

As proof, Stockman points to this year's presidential campaign, where both candidates sounded various notes of concern about mountaintop removal mining, while still pledging research money for "clean coal" technology aimed at reducing the fuel's carbon impact.

The campaign may also have showed opposition to surface mining isn't necessarily the third rail of West Virginia politics: despite calling for an outright ban on mountaintop removal, U.S. Sen. John McCain easily won the state, including all the southern coalfields counties except McDowell and Boone.

Rod Snyder, president of the state's Young Democrats, believes the new activity on environmental causes will ultimately make the party stronger, bringing people like Chiotos and Caputo closer together.

"It's been seen in the past as obstructionist, but the environmental movement is beginning to understand people need to have good jobs," Snyder said. "That's something everyone in the Democratic Party can support."

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The Herald-Dispatch

Newly elected and returning Democrats are having to deal with the importance of coal in West Virginia and the issue of mountaintop removal.

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