Mark is one of 18 service members chosen to participate in the first class of the newly established “Energy Communities AmeriCorps,” part of a national effort to revitalize coal communities.

EPCAMR is the first organization in eastern Pennsylvania’s Northern Appalachian Anthracite Coalfields – and currently one of only two nonprofits in the Keystone State – to host a service member as part of the innovative Energy Communities initiative. Other service members will be based at nonprofits in communities from West Virginia to Wyoming.

“It’s a small world here in Northeastern PA. Six degrees of separation seem to always come into play. Mark’s resume and experience over his career were a perfect match for EPCAMR when I developed the Volunteer Activity Description (VAD) for the Community Development Coordinator position that he will fill,” said EPCAMR Executive Director Bobby Hughes, who is Mark’s supervisor.

Jones

“He’s joining us at just the right time,” Bobby added. “He understands and has lived in the coal region long enough to have seen many of the same positive reclamation, restoration, and diversification of economies on the landscape of our former abandoned mine lands that was once dominated by a single industry: anthracite coal mining. He’s covered EPCAMR projects at his previous job with The Times Leader newspaper and was familiar with our work, and my instinct told me that his affinity and background working with many nonprofits that I was already very familiar with was a huge determining factor in my selection of him for the volunteer position.”

Mark will serve through Dec. 3, 2025. He and his fellow service members will strive to leverage and bring resources to their respective coal communities to spur job creation, support economic revitalization, and address environmental degradation.

The service members will focus on projects that build capacity of nonprofit organizations, local economic development districts, and other organizations. They will carry out activities such as conducting community needs assessments, organizing public meetings, assisting with grant writing, providing outreach on tax incentives and other federal resources to support economic development, increasing public awareness about training and employment opportunities, and educating residents about hazards associated with abandoned mine lands.

“I am privileged to be a small part of this much-needed effort to transform coal communities that historically helped to power our nation’s growth and development but, which, sadly, still bear the scars of those intensive mining activities,” said Mark, of Kingston.

A Pennsylvania native, Mark graduated in 1991 from Penn State University. He formerly worked as a print journalist in places including suburban Phoenix, Arizona, and Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. He started a civic journalism project at The Times Leader in Wilkes-Barre to strengthen the area’s nonprofit safety net; the project was later recognized with a public service award by the Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association. Most recently, Mark was employed by The Wright Centers for Community Health and Graduate Medical Education, based in Scranton.

AmeriCorps developed the Energy Communities AmeriCorps project in partnership with the Interagency Working Group on Coal and Power Plant Communities and Economic Revitalization (Energy Communities IWG), which serves as a hub for federal coordination and stakeholder engagement to spur economic revitalization and support workers in distressed energy communities.

The Energy Communities IWG has so far launched seven Rapid Response Teams to align federal resources in communities experiencing recent or imminent economic downturns. AmeriCorps members will work closely with these Rapid Response Teams to engage local government, business, and nonprofit stakeholders in each energy community.

Energy Communities AmeriCorps is funded through a unique multi-agency public private partnership with support from members of the Energy Communities IWG – the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement, the Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration, the Appalachian Regional Commission, and Bloomberg Philanthropies.

Conservation Legacy, the project’s sponsor, is a longstanding AmeriCorps partner with extensive experience working in coal communities. Over the past 22 years, Conservation Legacy has engaged more than 1,200 AmeriCorps members in supporting economic development and revitalization in energy communities in Appalachia and the Intermountain West. These members have secured $41 million in grants and in-kind resources, recruited 100,000 volunteers, trained 16,000 community members in water quality monitoring, and improved 3.2 million acres of land.

EPCAMR, which got its start in 1995, encourages the reclamation and redevelopment of land affected by past mining practices. This includes reducing hazards to health and safety, eliminating soil erosion, improving water quality, and returning land affected by past mining practices to productive use, thereby improving the economy of the region.” For additional information, including how you can get involved, visit epcamr.org.

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Solomon Creek AMD Boreholes in South Wilkes-Barre

Dec. 7 — Hope has dimmed for a mine cleanup bill that environmental activists have pushed hard for.

Two factors are dooming the Revitalizing the Economy of Coal Communities by Leveraging Local Activities and Investing More (RECLAIM) Act (H.R. 4456): First, the bill still hasn’t been introduced in the Senate, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) isn’t supporting it.

Second, only seven legislative days remain in the current session of Congress.

The bill would provide $1 billion over five years to mining states for land cleanup. The money would come from the existing Abandoned Mine Land fund, which is paid for by coal producers, and wouldn’t require any new taxes or fees.

McConnell Noncommittal

On Dec. 5 and 6, a coalition of environmentalists delivered a petition with 10,000 signatures in support of the RECLAIM Act to McConnell and his staff, both at his Kentucky and Washington, D.C. offices.

“They never shut down the idea,” said Eric Dixon, coordinator of policy and community engagement at the Appalachian Law Center. “But we’ve also never seen the majority leader make it a priority, despite the fact that many East Kentuckians have made it a priority.”

But McConnell spokesman Robert Steurer told Bloomberg BNA that the senator had “no scheduling announcements beyond this week.” Steurer also noted that only 1,300 of the 10,000 signatures were from Kentucky.

Republicans in House Support Bill

Thom Kay, legislative associate at Appalachian Voices, said McConnell’s lack of support was puzzling, given how many Republicans have supported the bill in the House.

“They’re also conservative, pro-coal Republicans from coal country and throughout Appalachia,” Kay told Bloomberg BNA. “And it’s from [Rep.] Hal Rogers [R-Ky.], and the Republican House Natural Resources Committee has put a lot of time and effort into strengthening the bill as much as possible. So that’s clearly a lot of Republican buy-in.”

Some have speculated that Senate Republicans are steering clear of the RECLAIM Act, because they’re focusing on the Miners Protection Act (S. 1714), a bill that addresses health and pension benefits to miners, and don’t want to expend any more political capital on miners. 

CR Path Closed

Environmental lobbyists also have tried to get the bill attached to the continuing resolution that the House hopes to pass before it adjourns Dec. 9. But that hasn’t happened either, despite Rogers’ efforts, Kay said, and it now appears highly unlikely to be part of the CR.

“The CR path is basically closed,” he said. “We’re trying to figure out what paths there are now, if any.”

The Miner’s Protection Act, S. 1714, also didn’t make it into the CR.

Reintroduction Likely

If the RECLAIM measure dies in the current session of Congress, it will most likely be introduced in the next one.

But that could take months, “especially if people start tinkering with language,” Kay said.

Dixon said the needs for mine cleanup and economic revitalization in coal states are too acute for continued delays.

“I don’t think we can wait another year on this,” Dixon said. “We have to take action right now. Congress needs to make this a priority this week.”

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