The Majority Leader in the state Senate says now is not the time to hang up his public service hat.

"I hear this critical issue about coal much more than reelection and who's going to run against you and local politics.  This issue has taken over everybody's thoughts," Senator Truman Chafin, a Democrat from Mingo County, said on Tuesday's MetroNews Talkline.

Yes, he says, he is running again in 2010.  His current focus, though, is on the massive climate change bill now being considered in the U.S. Senate.  The bill still includes a cap and trade provision that would limit carbon emissions and require permits for those companies whose emissions go above set levels.

Last week, Senator Chafin wrote a letter to the Williamson Daily News calling on his fellow Democrats, those who supported President Barack Obama as a candidate, to start putting pressure on the Obama Administration to repay that support.  He writes, "It's time for President Obama to dance with the ones that brung him."

That payment, he says, should be in the form of protections for West Virginia's coal industry.  "The only two horses that we can now ride at this critical time are Senator (Jay) Rockefeller and Congressman (Nick) Rahall."

It's clear, Senator Chafin says, that the Obama Administration is taking a stand on coal and it's not a stand that will benefit West Virginia.

"I think that they (those in the Obama Administration) have made a determination that coal's dirty, that we can do alternative forms of energy, that we don't need coal.  I think that decision's been made privately and I think their actions speak louder than their words."