Casper Star-Tribune from Casper, Wyoming • 1

1 InC A Rp" to Bejiing cracks down on dogs A2 1 Mourning for 1941 massacre A5 WYOMING'S STATEWIDE NEWSPAPER pa .1 Ji JLLU IUJJL JBC 30 FOUNDED IN 1891 41. Parade precision pot prices for PUB coal settle 1 Peabody to reopen Rawhide coal mine The Natrona County High School marching band participates in the 2001 Central Wyoming Fair and Rodeo Parade on Tuesday morning in downtown Casper. See Casper Area for story. By DUSTIN BLEIZEFFER Star-Tribune energy reporter GILLETTE Spot prices for the Powder River Basin's sweetest coal have retreated 22 percent from a $14 per ton peak in June to an average $10.75 per ton so far this month. But experts say the drop is no indication of an impending fallout.

Merrill Lynch coal analyst Dave Gagliano said he believes the $14 peak for 8,800 British thermal heating unit coal was a rare mutation of market events during the past two years. A settling spot market price was inevitable, but it should remain well above the basin's $4 per ton streak that plagued the area for much of the 1990s and into 2000. Overall, Wyoming producers have said that buyers paid an average of $5.13 per ton for their coal in 2000. "1 think (spot prices) will stabilize at or around these ($11.75) levels, but the spot market is very difficult to call," Gagliano said Tuesday in a phone interview from his New York office. Less than 25 percent of coal produced in the basin is sold on the spot market.

It was largely Y2K stockpiling and a surge in coal demand for electric power generation that helped basin coal mines escape the break-even prices of $4 per ton and lower, Gagliano said. Basin producers responded by cranking up production to record levels, topping 323 million tons in 2000. Please see COAL, A14 'Faith-based' exemption dumped By DUSTIN BLEIZEFFER Star-Tribune energy reporter GILLETTE Peabody Energy announced Tuesday that an "improved" coal market has convinced the company to reopen its Rawhide coal mine 10 miles north of Gillette this fall, ending a 2-year idling of the mine. Peabody spokesman Vic Svec said the reopening could create about 150 new jobs, but the company has not yet decided whether it will operate the mine itself or hire a contractor. Production is expected to resume at 8 million tons per year of 8,400 British thermal heating unit (Btu) coal.

Currently, the Powder River Basin's 8,800 Btu coal is fetching an average of $11.75 per ton on the spot market up from an average $4.50 per ton this time a year ago. Svec said some of the added production from Rawhide is committed, but Peabody will be able to sell more coal on the spot market. Svec wouldn't say how much more coal the company hopes to sell on the spot market or if the coal would Please see MINE, A 14 Plan allowed discrimination against gays '(T)he Army does insist that those people who have religious responsibilities, who are ministers, share the theology and lifestyle of the By LAURA MECKLER Associated Press WASHINGTON In a fresh controversy over President Bush's "faith-based initiative," the White House backed away from a proposal that would have allowed religious groups to receive federal funds even if they discriminated against gays and lesbians. Amid intense criticism, officials abruptly ended a re White House spokesman Dan Bartlett said senior administration officials reviewed the matter over the course of the day and concluded that religious groups do not need overt protections in order to bypass gay-rights hiring laws. Legislation now pending in Congress and being pushed hard by President Bush -makes it clear that any religious group that gets Please see FAITH-BASED, A14 view of a proposed regulation that would have exempted religious groups from state and local anti-discrimination laws.

The decision came late Tuesday afternoon, hours after Vice President Dick Cheney and other administration officials said that churches and other religious groups should be allowed to stick to their principles in running secular programs with government money. SALVATION ARMY SPOKESMAN DAVID FL'SCl'S BP, DEQ look at North Tank Farm pollution Today Warm, maybe a late day thunderstorm 8957 By MARK BRADY Star-Tribune staff writer With a cleanup agreement on the former Amoco refinery behind them, officials from BP, the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality and their consultants this week moved on to tackle contamination issues on the area of the North Tank Farm including soil contamination detected near existing businesses. DEQ Project Manager Vickie Meredith said Tuesday that her agency and BP are trying to work out contamination issues on the North Tank Farm and North Platte River area Area and Area G. He said there is some contamination in Area where NAPA Auto Parts is located. In Area he said, some contamination lies between the Casper Star-Tribune building and First Street, some of which is under the Star Lane roadway.

He said there has also been waste detected under the parking lot of Pepper Tank, which is in Area G. He said none of the contamination known to be in those off-site areas lies under buildings. "I'm not aware of any buildings that have waste under them," he said. "We won't know for sure until we start Please see CLEANUP, A14 rective Action Program, said soil cleanup alternatives for the North Tank Farm area are generally similar to those at the former refinery which entail excavating and removing contamination "hotspots" in the soil and underground pipe. But there are key differences between the North Tank Farm area and the former refinery, he said.

For one, he said, the tank farm has significant soil contamination impacts on neighboring sites not owned by BP. BP Cleanup Supervisor Joe De-schamp said there are basically three of those off-site areas with underground contamination, dubbed Area ahead of BP releasing its Technical Support Document on the area -scheduled for late August. The document will detail where, what and how much contamination is on the site, the risk it poses to humans and the environment, and how BP proposes to clean it up. The area ranges along First Street, extending from High Country Fabrication, the Casper Star-Tribune and Napa Auto Parts on the north side of the street and including Pepper Tank further west but on the south side of the roadway. Carl Anderson, manager of DEQ's Hazardous Waste Permitting and Cor The grouch Thomas wins Finance seat Enzi takes vacant Foreign Relations post Social Security and Medicare Senate rejects efforts to shield trust funds Time to talk to Thomas about the Grouch Solvency Act of 2001 ENJOY CI CALENDAR B4 CASPER AREA A3 CLASSIFIED C3-14 COMICS A10.

C4 CROSSWORD C4 LANDERS, WILDER A9 LETTERS A13 MARKETS A8 MOVIES A9 OBITUARIES B3 OPINION A12 SPORTS Dl-4 WEATHER B4 WYOMING Bl A- IKl n. THOMAS ENZI over Medicare and international trade. The body largely wrote the recently passed $1.35 trillion Bush administration tax cut act. However, Thomas must relinquish his longtime seat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in order to take the Finance slot, Thomas spokesman Dan Kunsman noted. Both committees are deemed "AA" assignments, he explained, and senators may only serve on one such committee at a time.

Thomas had used the No. 5 seat on Foreign Relations to push China and India over protectionist trade policies he said hurt Wyoming exports, particularly trona. He also spoke out frequently as chairman, and now ranking minority member, of the panel's East Asia and Pacific Affairs Please see ASSIGNMENTS, A14 By JASON MARSDEN Star-Tribune Washington bureau WASHINGTON Wyoming gained a measure of political clout Tuesday, as U.S. Senate Republican leaders chose Sen. Craig Thomas for a highly desirable position on the Finance Committee and his colleague Sen.

Mike Enzi for the resulting vacancy on the Foreign Relations panel. Thomas, in the first year of his second six-year term, won the coveted assignment after the GOP removed Vermont independent Sen. James Jeffords from its committee membership rosters due to his June exit from the party. Jeffords will likely win the new 11th Democratic seat on Finance created by the post-party-switch reorganization. By ALAN FRAM Associated Press WASHINGTON The Senate rejected rival efforts Tuesday to protect the Social Security and Medicare trust funds as Democrats and Republicans dueled anew over which party is the true protector of federal surpluses.

By 54-43, the Senate rejected a Republican proposal that would have automatically triggered across-the-board spending cuts if the Social Security trust fund were to be eroded. Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, the sponsor, called his plan "a firewall against irresponsible spending." But Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, said, "I call it the Republican broken safe, because there's not a penny reserved for Medicare." Minutes earlier, senators voted 54-42 to block a Democratic plan requiring the assent of GO of the 100 senators to approve tax cuts or new spending that would eat into the projected surpluses of Social Security and Medicare. Both votes were nearly along party lines. Soalled lockbox plans have failed to make into law before, and Tuesday's votes were no surprise.

Even so, with partisan finger-pointing escalating over who is to blame for dwindling surplus projections, each party's proposal allowed it to claim it opposes raids on popular programs for the elderly and disabled. Please see FUNDS, A14 The Wyoming Republican especially values the Finance seat because that committee handles rural health legislation, one of his pet issues. "The panel is the perfect platform to pursue my priorities for expanding rural health care, strengthening Social Security, reforming the tax code and, to a large degree, enacting a national energy plan," Thomas said in a prepared statement. Finance Committee members also hold jurisdiction Wyoming's largest statewide newspaper subscribe today! (800) 442-6916 or (307) 2660550 1.