This news story originally provided by The Herald-Dispatch

November 17, 2006

Shepherdstown signs on to environmental agreement

SHEPHERDSTOWN, W.Va. (AP) -- Shepherdstown has become the only municipality in coal-producing West Virginia to support a global greenhouse gas agreement.

Town Council voted Tuesday to sign on to the U.S. Mayor's Climate Protection Agreement, which asks state and federal governments to uphold the standards of the Kyoto Protocol, which obliges 35 industrial nations to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2012.

"We feel it's very important to try and meet the Kyoto protocols," Shepherdstown Councilman Frank Salzano said Thursday.

"We have broad support among the community and the council."

The United States and Australia are the only major industrialized countries to reject the Kyoto Protocol.

As of Wednesday, 330 mayors across the country had signed on to the U.S. Mayor's Climate Protection Agreement.

The agreement commits local governments to meet or beat Kyoto Protocol targets in their own communities through urban forest reforestation, land-use policies aimed at curbing sprawl and other initiatives. It also states that local governments will continue to urge state and federal legislators to lower greenhouse gas emissions.

Carbon dioxide from burning coal, oil and other fossil fuels is the biggest of the greenhouse gases. West Virginia is the second largest coal-producing state in the nation.

Bill Raney, president of the West Virginia Coal Association, said Friday that his concern about the initiative is the effect it could have "on the livelihoods of those who depend on the mining industry."

"Typically what seems to be happening here is people are jumping on an emotional bandwagon without thinking about the impact that it has on everyone's routine lifestyles," he said.