Drummond Coal

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is sending a mobile lab to test for black lung and other ailments common to coal miners in Alabama. The CDC’s National Institute for Occupational Health has screenings scheduled in Sumiton today. Stops in Bessemer, Berry, Brookwood, Adger, and Tuscaloosa begin tomorrow.

U.S. officials in the coming days are set to hold the government's biggest coal sales in more than a decade, offering 600 million tons from publicly owned reserves next to strip mines in Montana and Wyoming. Administration officials have advanced coal mine expansions and lease sales in Utah, North Dakota, Tennessee and Alabama, in addition to Montana and Wyoming.

A former state representative in Birmingham has pled guilty to multiple charges in connection with an EPA Superfund site in the area. Federal prosecutors…