By Kathy Larsen on March 18, 2010 8:52 AM

Coal and coal-utility executives speaking at Platts' Coal Properties and Investment Conference in Fort Lauderdale this week met in a besieged mood, but seemed to have a pretty clear idea of the reason and purpose behind it.

"There is a campaign to eliminate coal at all levels. And unfortunately that campaign is in charge of EPA, the White House and runs the Department of Energy." That was Seth Schwartz, managing director of Energy Ventures Analysis, an Arlington, Virginia-based consulting firm. He and others see little but a concerted drive to drive them out of business.

Our colleague Amena Saiyid reports that Chris Hobson, Southern Company's chief environmental officer and senior vice president of research and environmental affairs, lamented what he said was the Obama administration's forcing the power industry to make decisions based on natural gas, instead of taking a longer-term perspective. "We won't have time to put other generation sources to work," he said. "We are headed for a real energy train wreck."

Competing with $6/MMBtu gas is hard even without limits on carbon emissions, he said: "If you believe $6 gas is the future, it's a stretch to imagine you can build a coal-fired plant."

And then there are the other pending and likely environmental rules -- fine particulate limits, new air quality standards for sulfur dioxide, mercury-control requirements, once-through cooling rules, and more.

The mercury regulation is the "biggest hoax" perpetrated on mankind, Hobson said, alluding to Senator James Inhofe's characterization of global warming as the biggest hoax. Very little of human-made mercury deposition comes from the US power industry, he said. "I don't for the life of me understand why we have been so manic to control the electric power industry."

"Cradle to grave" regulation of coal takes in every step from reviews of Clean Water Act permits in Appalachian mines to decisions about coal ash disposal, Hobson said.

About the coal ash regulation: The more utilities, users of coal-ash products and many state-government figures have urged not classifying it as hazardous waste, "the more EPA has dug in its heels," he said. "I think Administrator Jackson has it in her to regulate it as hazardous waste because hazardous waste regulation gives her the federal authority she wants." But the agency has really started to feel the pressure, Hobson suggested.

The Office of Management and Budget has pushed back (the ash regulation has been caught in difficult OMB-EPA process for months), and Hobson said "I've heard a rumor that even the White House has expressed some concern about regulating it as a hazardous waste.

"What will happen is that we are going to see EPA issue regulations of coal ash as a non-hazardous waste, but the requirements will be such that we won't see the difference between HAP and non-HAP," referring to hazardous air pollutant regulation. The agency could do it, for example, by requiring utilities to shift from wet ponds to dry handling of ash, requiring closing of ponds -- but still preserving the ability to sell the ash for products that fall in the beneficial-use category.

The latest on that ash rule is that it will be issued in April. If intra-administration conflict can be worked out by then.