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DEADWOOD, S.D. - Leaders of Western states banded together Sunday to call on the federal government for help in funding new technologies for clean coal energy.
Meeting in this historic 19th century gold mining town, the Western Governors' Association unanimously supported a resolution by Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. urging the federal government for money and flexibility to move ahead on a spectrum of energy technologies.
The primary goal: to make coal power environmentally acceptable for future generations by pumping its greenhouse emissions underground to combat global warming.
"With this resolution, the Western governors now have said, 'This is important work and we are committed to leading out on it,' " explained Huntsman's energy adviser Dianne Neilson.
The governors hope that federal funding for reducing coal pollution, spent in the East for decades, will begin to flow to Western states that not only have vast coal reserves but the subterranean geology to hold the...