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SCATTERED THUNDERSTORMS 53 • 35 FORECAST, A2 | Sunday, April 10, 2016 | trib.com
COAL MINING
Battered firms’ CEOs prospered Arch, Alpha, Peabody paid leadership teams $186M between 2012 and 2014 BENJAMIN STORROW 307-335-5344, Benjamin.Storrow@trib.com
In 2011, the coal industry went on a shopping spree. China’s economy was humming, and there seemed no limit to the amount of coal the country’s steel mills could consume. America’s coal companies, sensing an opportunity, rushed to acquire mines that produced the metallurgical coal essential to steel fabrication. Arch Coal paid $3.4 billion cash for the International Coal Group. Peabody Energy plunked down $5 billion for a majority stake in Australia’s MacArthur Coal. And Al-
pha Natural Resources shelled out $7.1 billion for Massey Energy, a metallurgical miner based in Appalachia. Executives at the three firms Boyce were handsomely rewarded in the following years. The three companies paid their respective management teams a combined $186 million in stock awards, incentives and other forms of compensation between 2012 and 2014, according to a
Crutchfield Eaves Star-Tribune review of the firms’ financial filings. Their companies did not benefit to the same degree. Alpha, Arch and Peabody have failed to record an annual profit since 2011. Two of the firms, Alpha and Arch, are now in bank-
ruptcy, and Peabody may soon join them. The story of their demise is now wellknown. Chinese demand faltered, Marshall m e ta l l u rg i c a l coal prices collapsed and American mining firms watched as the domestic market for thermal coal conJENNA VONHOFE, STAR-TRIBUNE tracted, decimated by cheap A haul truck dumps materials outside of natural gas. the Black Thunder Coal Mine on March 31 in Wright. Please see COAL, Page A8
AP
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks Monday in Milwaukee. The GOP front-runner has performed relatively poorly in the Northern Rockies.
Trump struggles to connect with Wyoming voters HUNTER WOODALL AND LAURA HANCOCK Star-Tribune staff writers
tudy a map of presidential S primary results and you’ll see Donald Trump dominating in the northeast, picking up pledged delegates as competitors stagger and fall. You’ll see him defeating more established candidates in Arizona and Nevada and stunning pundits with complete dominance in the southern states. But where you won’t see Trump winning big, or winning much at all, is in Wyoming, Utah and Idaho, three of the nation’s reddest states, where the real estate mogul and Cruz famed reality star has struggled to connect with voters. Trump is still the front-runner for the GOP nomination for president, but he’s failed in the Northern Rockies to gain the same support he’s enjoyed in other states. He’s lost to Sen. Ted Cruz in Idaho and Utah and has claimed only one delegate so far in Wyoming — the same number as Sen. Marco Rubio, who has since dropped out of the race. Cruz, in comparison, earned nine. Several factors contribute to Trump’s lack of success in the Northern Rockies, political observers say. His top opponent, Cruz, has more often discussed issues that resonate with voters Please see TRUMP, Page A8
ADVISERS BUSINESS CASPER
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JENNA VONHOFE, STAR-TRIBUNE
Bernie Sanders supporters cheer Saturday after a Sanders nomination during the Natrona County Democratic Caucus at the Casper Events Center.
Sanders clears majority vote; he and Clinton evenly split delegates LAURA HANCOCK 307-266-0581, Laura.Hancock@trib.com
emocratic presidential hopeD fuls Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton evenly split Wyoming’s 14 national delegates that were up for grabs on Saturday at county caucuses, with Sanders receiving the majority vote. Sanders, a U.S. senator from Vermont, ultimately won the popular vote, although Democratic Party officials said there are different levels of delegates and the math resulted in a split. National media called the caucus for Sanders, and Wyoming Democratic officials initially said he had one more delegate than Clinton before the delegate math was clear. “He won 56 percent of the popular vote, but when you do the delegate math, as to rules both campaigns agreed to, Sanders is awarded seven national delegates,” said Aimee Van Cleave, executive director of the Wyoming Democratic Party. Wyoming has a total of 18 delegates who will cast votes for presidential candidates at the National Democratic Convention in July. Four are superdelegates who previously committed to Clinton. To secure the party’s nomination, a presidential candidate needs at least 2,383 delegates. Sanders visited Wyoming on
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$3.00 • Volume 123, Issue 34 • A Lee Enterprises Newspaper • Copyright 2016
JENNA VONHOFE, STAR-TRIBUNE
Deb Fleming, a volunteer, sorts through raffle tickets Saturday at the Natrona County Democratic Caucus at the Casper Events Center. Tuesday for a rally at the University of Wyoming. His wife, Jane Sanders, had visited Casper and Cheyenne on Monday and Tuesday. On Saturday, Sanders was speaking at another a rally at LaGuardia Community College in New York when Jane walked on stage to tell him the news, according to a Sanders statement. “Alright, news bulletin: We just won Wyoming,” Sanders said to cheers. “We appreciate and thank the people of Wyoming so much for their support.”
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Clinton, a former secretary of state, did not visit the Cowboy State. But she racked up endorsements of key Wyoming Democrats. And former President Bill Clinton campaigned in Cheyenne for his wife on Monday. “We congratulate Sen. Sanders on a spirited campaign in Wyoming,” Robby Mook, campaign manager for Hillary for America, said in a statement Saturday. “Outperforming expectations, Hillary Clinton tied in pledged delegates today and now leads Sen. Sanders by approximately
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220 pledged delegates nationwide.” Sanders has done well in states neighboring Wyoming. Sanders received 79 percent of the vote in Utah caucuses, 78 percent in Idaho, 59 percent in Colorado and 57 percent in Nebraska. Phil Roberts, a UW history professor who caucused for Sanders, said generally, Clinton’s Wyoming supporters are older, long-time Democrats. Sanders appealed to many younger people. Roberts has observed Sanders’ popularity on campus. “Like young people everywhere, UW students seem to favor Sanders by huge margins,” he said. “Much has to do with the growing disgust they’ve experienced with ‘politics as usual’ in the country and how it seems that everything from the economy to the party caucus system is rigged,” he said in an email. “Sanders’ genuine honesty and aspirations for better times are exactly what students embrace. At Saturday’s county caucuses, a total of of 7,265 registered Democrats were selecting delegates to send to the state convention next month. Please see CAUCUS, Page A8
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