Kaine Says Coal-Burning Power Plant Is Necessary

Pete Ramey, president of the Southern Appalachian Mountain Stewards, said the proposed plant would exacerbate "mountaintop coal mining" in Virginia. The process, used mostly in Appalachian coal mines, involves using explosives to blast away part of a mountain in search of coal.

"This plant is just going to increase the terrible devastation we are already seeing of our mountains," said Ramey, who lives in Wise.

Dominion says the project would create hundreds of jobs, one of the reasons state and local officials support the plant.

"It will be a huge economic boost for our town, and we are in need right now," said Rita McReynolds, a town council member in St. Paul, which is in Wise.

Environmentalists, who have collected 30,000 signatures opposing the plan, say Kaine's support runs counter to a detailed energy proposal he put forward in September. Although the plan expressed support for the new Dominion plant, it also called for a 30 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2025.

Kaine, who has accepted nearly $250,000 in campaign contributions from Dominion since 1996, has sought to deflect some of the criticism. He said the State Corporation Commission and other regulatory agencies, not the governor, will decide whether the project gets built.

"I am not the one who hands out the permits," Kaine said in a radio interview on WRVA in Richmond.

The state Department of Environmental Quality decided this year that the project deserved a permit because it met all environmental laws, said Bill Hayden, an agency spokesman. But it hit a snag March 20 when the state Air Pollution Control Board voted to oversee the permitting process after environmental concerns were raised.

Sierra Club's Besa noted that Kaine, who also accepted tens of thousands of dollars in donations from environmentalists, will appoint two members to that board this summer. "The buck does stop with the governor," he said.

Skinner replied: "We are going to pick good members of the air board and not try to gauge it one way or another based on this particular permit. The system is set up so politicians don't make permitting decisions. . . . The decisions are supposed to be based on science."