CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- United Mine Workers officials believe the global warming bill being voted on today in the House of Representatives protects the coal industry, but that assurance wasn't enough to win support from any of West Virginia's three representatives.

Democratic Reps. Nick Rahall and Alan Mollohan announced late Thursday they would join Republican Shelley Moore Capito in voting against the American Clean Energy and Security Act.

Rahall and Mollohan both cited concerns about the bill's impact on the coal industry. Capito has expressed similar concerns, but has also joined with Republican efforts to paint the bill as a huge tax on utility bills, and has said she's not convinced climate change is a pressing problem.

A vote in the House was expected to be close, and President Barack Obama joined Democratic House leaders in pushing for the measure -- with Obama saying it would create jobs, not kill the nation's economy and hurt energy consumers.

The bill would cap carbon dioxide emissions and create a market for trading and selling greenhouse emissions permits.

It aims to reduce greenhouse emissions by 17 percent by 2020 and by 80 percent by 2050, in an effort to avoid the most serious impacts of global warming, such as major sea level rises and widespread species extinctions.

Already, Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va., succeeded in packing the legislation with money to encourage technology that would capture carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants. Boucher's language funnels $1 billion a year for developing that technology, and another provision he worked out gives utilities the bulk of their emissions permits free, a move that by one UMW estimate was worth $181 billion between now and 2050.

Boucher also managed to reduce the bill's short-term emissions reduction requirement -- seen as a key to giving carbon capture and storage technology, or CCS, time to be perfected and deployed -- from a 20-percent cut by 2020 to 17 percent over the same period.

Coal industry officials continued to oppose the measure. And while the UMW never announced its formal support, union spokesman Phil Smith had positive words for the bill as late as midafternoon Thursday.

"We are very appreciative of the fact that our voice has been heard as legislation has been developed," Smith said in an e-mail to The Charleston Gazette.

"As it stands now, the amount of money dedicated to coal in this bill is remarkable, and the future of coal will be intact," Smith said.

Democratic Reps. Nick Rahall and Alan Mollohan announced late Thursday they would join Republican Shelley Moore Capito in voting against the American Clean Energy and Security Act.

Rahall and Mollohan both cited concerns about the bill's impact on the coal industry. Capito has expressed similar concerns, but has also joined with Republican efforts to paint the bill as a huge tax on utility bills, and has said she's not convinced climate change is a pressing problem.

A vote in the House was expected to be close, and President Barack Obama joined Democratic House leaders in pushing for the measure -- with Obama saying it would create jobs, not kill the nation's economy and hurt energy consumers.

The bill would cap carbon dioxide emissions and create a market for trading and selling greenhouse emissions permits.

It aims to reduce greenhouse emissions by 17 percent by 2020 and by 80 percent by 2050, in an effort to avoid the most serious impacts of global warming, such as major sea level rises and widespread species extinctions.

Already, Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va., succeeded in packing the legislation with money to encourage technology that would capture carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants. Boucher's language funnels $1 billion a year for developing that technology, and another provision he worked out gives utilities the bulk of their emissions permits free, a move that by one UMW estimate was worth $181 billion between now and 2050.

Boucher also managed to reduce the bill's short-term emissions reduction requirement -- seen as a key to giving carbon capture and storage technology, or CCS, time to be perfected and deployed -- from a 20-percent cut by 2020 to 17 percent over the same period.

Coal industry officials continued to oppose the measure. And while the UMW never announced its formal support, union spokesman Phil Smith had positive words for the bill as late as midafternoon Thursday.

"We are very appreciative of the fact that our voice has been heard as legislation has been developed," Smith said in an e-mail to The Charleston Gazette.

"As it stands now, the amount of money dedicated to coal in this bill is remarkable, and the future of coal will be intact," Smith said.

But, Smith added, "Depending on what happens to this legislation as it makes its way through the legislative process, we may not be able to support it in the end. But a start has been made that recognizes the critical importance of coal to our nation's energy future."

But, the UMW also distributed a position paper on Capitol Hill that said the 17-percent emissions reduction by 2020 "does not provide sufficient time for commercial application" of CCS technology on new or existing power plants.

In announcing his opposition to the bill, Rahall issued a statement that said, "Coal does much more than keep the lights on in big cities across America. In Southern West Virginia, it covers the mortgage, puts food on the family dinner table, and keeps open the doors of small businesses.

"While the emissions target in the early years of this program has been lowered from the 20 percent cap initially contained in this bill, there remains widespread concern that even the reduced cap -- 17 percent in 2020 -- is still too high and too soon to incentivize rapid development and deployment of carbon capture and sequestration technologies, so as to ensure coal mining jobs in the future," Rahall said.

Mollohan cited similar concerns.

"We have made significant progress on a number of fronts that together would hold down the cost of electricity to residential and industrial consumers, that would help level the playing field for our steel and manufacturing industries that face international competition, and that would enable the electric power industry to continue to burn West Virginia coal," Mollohan said. "As a result of our efforts, the bill is much improved from the original draft, but it still falls short in several key areas, and I cannot support it."

Capito, who has opposed the bill from the start, echoed the GOP's criticism of the bill, saying it amounts to a "national energy tax on consumers, a tax on business and a tax that we can't afford.

"In a state that gets 98 percent of its electricity from coal and employs thousands of miners, a bill that penalizes domestic energy isn't a valid option," Capito said earlier this week.

A Congressional Budget Office analysis, cited by many experts, projected figures that showed the bill would cost a typical American household 18 cents a day, or about $65 a year. And a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency study found that efficiency measures in the bill would lower consumer spending on utility bills by 7 percent by 2020.

Reach Ken Ward Jr. at kw...@wvgazette.com or 304-348-1702.