On Friday Oct. 3, Oregon rejected Wyoming’s appeal of the state’s decision not to build a coal port known as the Port of Morrow in Oregon. The port would have been located on the Colombia River part of the way through Oregon, and would send coal on to the Port of St. Helens and then to China.
Along with Port of Morrow there were five other ports proposed, however, only two of them still have the possibility of being built. Those ports are planned for Washington and are called the Gateway Pacific Terminal and the Millennium Bulk Terminals.
The denial of this port will probably not have a major economic impact on Wyoming due to the fact that the amount of coal being exported each year is approximately nine million tons, while the other two ports that are in the works for Washington would potentially export 100 million tons of coal a year.
“I suppose you could appeal this to some other court, but in the end you’re appealing over nine million tons,” said Robert Godby, an associate professor in the College of Business Department of Economics and Finance.
This port was not an essential port and one of the main reasons that Wyoming made the appeal was out of principle, said Godby. Wyoming wanted to show that it was serious about these coal ports on the west coast.
Godby also said that Wyoming could not make the appeal on the grounds of the commerce clause yet because this is not an infringement of interstate commerce as there are still two other options: the Gateway Pacific Terminal and Millennium Bulk Terminal. If these next two ports get denied, there is the possibility that Wyoming would see a lawsuit due to the violation of interstate commerce.
Another reason that Wyoming would fight back over something this small would be to take away the level of uncertainty that the coal industry faces, said Godby.
“Markets remain skeptical and so the question is [whether] Wyoming is doing everything it can to remove this uncertainty,” said Godby. “One of the ways they do that is fighting like crazy in court.”
Godby believes that Wyoming has basically two goals for coal. The short-term goal is for Wyoming to try and fight industry regulations, which is why Wyoming sought an appeal. The next strategy is to figure out where new markets might be and to protect those markets, which is why the Chinese markets are so important to the current Wyoming administration.
