Environmental group leaders yesterday urged Texas regulators to ensure that financially strapped Energy Future Holdings can cover the cost of cleaning up its coal mine operations in the state in the future, Reuters reported yesterday. Dallas-based Energy Future Holdings, the state's largest generator of electricity, is working to restructure about $40 billion in debt in the next few weeks. Environmental interests, Public Citizen and the Sierra Club, question whether EFH and its subsidiaries have set aside cash or assets with sufficient value to cover a potential $1 billion tab to clean up its mining operations as required by law should the company declare bankruptcy and plants are shuttered by new owners. The Texas Railroad Commission, which oversees mining activity in the state, has allowed Luminant Mining to "self-bond," or pledge company assets to meet the agency's financial requirements rather than put up a cash bond. Luminant operates mines in 11 Texas counties that supply the lignite, a low-quality coal, that is burned at five Luminant power plants and can generate more than 8,000 megawatts of electricity, enough to serve 4 million Texas homes on an average day.
