The Coal Pipeline: In Pacific Northwest, A Local Battle Has Global Fallout

The flyer and I landed in Matt Krogh's Bellingham office on the same October afternoon. I had stopped by to hear why he thought building the country's largest coal port just north of town was a bad idea; the four-page full-color mailing had arrived to try to convince him otherwise.

That day, tens of thousands of the flyers filled mailboxes in the northwest corner of Washington state. "These people have a lot of money," says Krogh, who works with the nonprofit RE Sources for Sustainable Communities in Bellingham. Indeed, promoting the port is Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway, owned by Warren Buffett's holding company; Peabody Energy, the world's largest coal company; and SSA Marine, the world's largest cargo terminal operator, half of which is owned by Goldman Sachs.