Jul. 13--By Phil Kabler, The Charleston Gazette, W.Va. Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News

A coal industry consultant told lawmakers the state should act to take advantage of the boom in coal prices.

"It's going to be very good for West Virginia, if West Virginia's ready to benefit," Marshall Miller told a legislative interim committee Tuesday.

Miller, a Bluefield, Va.-based coal industry consultant, said West Virginia should provide tax incentives and streamline permitting to take advantage of soaring energy prices worldwide.

"Give them the onus to operate here," he said of coal operators. "It's only going to help the state."

He cited Peabody Energy, the largest coal producer in the U.S., accounting for more than 17 percent of the nation's coal production. Yet Peabody mines account for only 4 percent of West Virginia's coal production.

"Peabody could be here a lot more aggressively, but they've got better situations elsewhere where they don't have to fight these negative aspects," Miller said.

He said the negative aspects include anti-coal environmentalists and media in the state.

"It's a tremendous challenge to win over the hearts and minds of the citizens of West Virginia that they have a tremendous resource in this state," he said.

Miller said state government needs to do more to assist the coal industry, noting that the state has not conducted a comprehensive survey of coal reserves since 1931.

That survey did not map thin coal seams, which were not considered mineable at the time, he said.

He said the industry standard is that West Virginia has 53 billion tons of recoverable coal reserves -- enough to maintain current production levels for 350 years.

"We know there's a lot of coal in West Virginia; we just don't know how much there is," he said. "Is it 53 billion tons? I doubt that it is."

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