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While West Virginia politicians are doing battle with the Obama administrations over tightening air and water pollution rules affecting the coal industry, federal energy experts said Marcellus Shale natural gas production has hit an all-time high in West Virginia and Pennsylvania.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration said that production from Pennsylvania and West Virginia totaled about 15 billion cubic feet per day in July.
That's a seven times increase since 2010.
Experts say West Virginia coal is playing out and the market value for the type of coal in the Mountain State continues to decline, indicating the environmental "War on Coal" is a smaller issue with the market.
Marcellus Shale generally lies about a mile underground, and it too poses a number of environmental risks.
At current rates the total gas yearly production is the energy equivalent of about 800 million barrels of oil.
The Energy Information Administration said it expects that Marcellus production will continue to grow.
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