Tuesday, October 9, 2012

I Stand With United For Coal: I Just Think the Blame Lies Elsewhere


This Saturday—if all goes according to plan, and so far it looks like things will go according to plan—residents of Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Ohio will gather along highways in a “United for Coal” demonstration. Sometimes called a “prayer line” and obliquely compared to the “Hands Across America” of 25 years ago, the demonstration is intended to call attention to the plight of miners, their families, and their communities, as more miners are laid off with little hope of ever getting their jobs back.
            The plight of these folks is real. Mines have been shuttered throughout the region. Just last month Alpha Natural Resources shut down eight mines in Appalachia, laying off 800 workers.
The organizers of this event say that the blame for their situation sits squarely with the Federal government and its environmental regulations. The United for Coal website says:

Our government has decided to commit "Regional Genocide" against our people. They have summarily executed the entire coal industry thru overreaching environmental regulation. This was done with no consideration of the human cost whatsoever. No replacement industry was offered, no migration path was planned. An entire society stamped out by rule of law with nary a thought about its citizens. Our "American Dream" has become a nightmare, and we are but the first domino to fall in an economic chain of events that will end the dreams of us all. Who can we turn to? Who will save us??

Now, inflammatory rhetoric aside, this narrative, that environmental rules are forcing the closure of power plants, which thus reduces the demand for the coal that is mined in the hills of Appalachia, is being reinforced by the press. That line of thought is conveyed in the headline of this Chicago Tribune story, published yesterday, “More US coal plants to retire due to green rules: study.”
            The newspaper story is based on a study by the international economic consulting firm The Brattle Group. But if you take a look at the study itself, the authors say that the retirement of the coal-fired power plants is due to lower prices for natural gas. The reduction of capacity is foreseen as being about 59,000 megawatts, going as high as 77,000 megawatts of capacity if strict environmental regulation is implemented. As The Brattle Group points out, however, the environmental regulations and deadlines for the coal plants are less restrictive than they had previously estimated. In the body of the Tribune story other factors affecting the closure of the power plants are mentionerd, including warmer than average weather. The headline is nonetheless misleading.
            Historically, the regulation for mining itself has been lax to nonexistent. In her groundbreaking expose of mountaintop removal mining for US New and World Report Penny Loeb said that the regulations of the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection, the department in charge of permitting mountaintop mining, “are outdated, its enforcement muscle is puny, and it is constantly reacting to problems rather than heading them off.”[i] Most fines are low, even for serious violations. The average fine is about $800 per incident. The maximum fine can be $5,000, but after protests by mine owners DEP assessment officers reduced nearly 80 percent of fines recommended by inspectors.[ii] And as illustrated by the disaster at the Upper Big Branch Mine in 2010, mine owners continue to disregard regulations, with little action by Washington even in the wake of a large and headline grabbing disaster such as Upper Big Branch.
            Now, things are bad for the folks of Appalachia. You can read books about the Battle of Blair Mountain or watch the movie Matewan and get a glimpse of the hardscrabble life of the Appalachian miners and others as they fought for unionization in the early twentieth century. Fifty years ago, as he campaigned through Appalachia, John Kennedy was moved as he witnessed the poverty of the region, leading him to form the Appalachian Regional Commission, intended to raise the living standards of Appalachians. Lyndon Johnson followed through with this effort by signing the bipartisan Appalachian Regional Development Act.
            But any ameliorative efforts by the Johnson and Kennedy administrations have been erased by 30 years of mountaintop removal, which requires only a fraction of the miners employed by more traditional mining techniques, and the union busting by the coal companies, particularly Massey Energy. The folks at United For Coal are correct. They need help. That help will not come from the coal companies. They are showing no solidarity with the miners and their families with United for Coal. Washington needs to do something. Just as the auto industry bailouts kept people working in Ohio and Michigan, investments in infrastructure or green projects could keep paychecks coming into Appalachian’s wallets.
            I support the people who will stand along the highways of Ohio, Kentucky, Virginia, and West Virginia. In spirit I am United for Coal. I believe, however, that the dire condition of the miners and their communities lies with forces beyond their control: a warm winter that drove down the demand for all fuel, as well as natural gas whose price has plummeted. They are also at the mercy of an industry that has been indifferent if not hostile to their needs, mountaintop removal that destroys the land and ruins communities, and state governments that are often more beholden to the coal companies than their own citizens.
            United for Coal is correct that the Federal Government is to blame for their plight as well. But it is more the fault of a short sighted and gridlocked political system than are the environmental requirements for cleaner air and water.



           



[i] Loeb, Penny, “Shear Madness,” US News and World Report (August 3 1997)
[ii] ibid

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