Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky gestures as he speaks with reporters on Capitol in Washington.

McConnell urges TVA to keep coal

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell wants the Tennessee Valley Authority to keep operating the Paradise Fossil Plant near Paducah, Tenn., which employs 400 workers and helps support thousands of others in the coal industry. McConnell recently met with TVA President Bill Johnson to discuss TVA's plans to shut down 18 coal-fired units within five years to comply with an EPA agreement. McConnell said closure of the plant, which burned more than 6 million tons of Kentucky coal last year, would hurt the economy.

Army Corps studies barge operation

Officials with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Nashville District Regulatory Branch met on Sept. 30 with barge owner B. Allen Casey regarding the floating restaurant Casey wants to develop on the north shore of the Tennessee River across from the Tennessee Aquarium and downtown pier. The corps is reviewing a request from Casey's River City Resort Inc., to extend the permit for the barge despite appeals to the Corps from Mayor Andy Berke and others to revoke the permit because of the poor condition of the barge.

Casey declined comment. But Tammy Turley, chief of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Nashville District Regulatory Branch, said his office "is currently evaluating the information to inform our decision to reinstate, modify, or revoke the permit."