The following is a transcript of a report by Team 4 reporter Jim Parsons that first aired July 25, 2007, on WTAE Channel 4 Action News at 5 p.m.

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Have you noticed new billboards on area highways, telling you that Pennsylvania coal is now clean and green?

Most people think of coal as black and dirty, so what are the signs all about?

The organization posting the billboards claim it's a grassroots group of families.

The name is Families for Pa. Coal, and it claims that coal is now a clean and renewable energy source.

But critics said the group is nothing more than the coal industry itself, trying to put a new spin on an old fossil fuel.

The message is hard to miss when you're driving on the turnpike, Interstate 79 or Route 51.

The billboards are part of a statewide advertising campaign by the four-year old organization, which is also known as Force.

"We got tired of just hearing the negative and seeing the negative in the paper and decided that we wanted to have a voice," said Force Executive Director Jeanine Rainone.

But who exactly is "we?"

According to brochures Force was handing out at the Longwall Mining Convention in Pittsburgh last month, it's a nonprofit, grassroots Pennsylvania corporation.

"It obviously gives them a better, more sympathetic viewpoint to say that families say that coal is clean, even if it's really dirty, than if Consolidated Coal is saying it," said Jim Kleisser of the Center For Coalfield Justice.

Kleisser said Force emerged in 2003 in response to public outrage over homes in Greene and Washington counties being damaged by the effects of Longwall Mining.

Force's founder doesn't dispute that.

"There was a huge impact of a lot of people driving against coal because of Longwall Mining and Longwall Mining legislation, so when you'd hear something bad in the papers, there was no one standing up to support the other side," said Force President Doug Farnham.

Force claims in its brochure that it provides information on coal-related issues in a factual and unbiased manner.

"We're in favor of the coal industry," Rainone said. "But we're not saying that other energies aren't needed as well."

"Force is CONSOL Coal and these other companies because in order to be a member of Force you have to be a member company and that's who their members are," Kleisser said.

"Can an individual become a member of force? If they're related to the coal industry, if they make a living from the coal industry," Rainone said.

But even coal industry workers have to join Force through their employer.

When asked if he could sit with a straight face and say Force is a grassroots organization of the common people, Farnham said he could.

Farnham, owner of Farnham and P-File, a coal industry supply company that shares its office building with Consol Energy and Force, said his company helps Force with its bills.

"We subsidize all we can to make this successful," he said.

In fact, Force doesn't pay any if its own expenses, according to the group's IRS tax return.

In the meantime, Farnham has formed a new company that's working with CONSOL Energy on a combustion technology that will burn coal waste without emitting as much particulate matter into the atmosphere.

Gov. Ed Rendell gave Farnham's company a $1 million grant to develop the technology, and Farnham has given Rendell $21,000 in political contributions since 2005.

"I support politicians who I think can get the job done," Farnham said. "And we were fortunate to support some of the ones who got this job done."

And Farnham wants you to know about that job getting done and so he's telling you that coal is now clean and green.

"If you can take coal and transform into energy and not have any pollution, that's green energy," Farnham said.

"I believe it's just a complete oxymoron," said Lisa Marcucci, the founder of the Jefferson Action Group. "There is no such thing as clean coal in my opinion."

Marcucci's group is an organization of citizens fighting to clean up the air around USX's Clairton Works.

"I don't care how you try to dress it up, coal is dirty by its nature," she said. "Coal pollutes."

"Coal is less dirty than it used to be, but it's still not clean," Kleisser said.

But what about the claim that coal is green and, in other words, renewable, like wind and solar energy?

Farnham said it is absolutely clean.

The executive director of Force however disagrees, saying coal is not a renewable, clean resource.

New coal-burning technologies are a part of Gov. Ed Rendell's proposed $850 million energy independence fund. Rendell wanted to pay for that fund with a new $6 a year surcharge on electric utility consumers.

The legislature said no to that idea earlier this month, but special hearings on the issue are planned for September.

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