Ohio’s State EPA Chief Resigns, Says Governor Wanted Him Out Because of Clashes With King Coal

Ohio’s top waterways watchdog to resign, says Kasich wanted him out

The head of Ohio’s state Environmental Protection Agency is resigning. The governor of the state wants his resignation because of pressure from the coal industry. George Elmaraghy, who has served in the Ohio state EPA for 39 years, explained in an email to his staff that the coal industry wants “permits that may have a negative impact on Ohio’s streams and wetlands and violate state and federal laws. Now, due to this situation, the governor’s office and the director have asked me to resign my position.” The full text of the letter can be found here.

            John Kasich, a member of the GOP who became governor of Ohio in 2011, has received large campaign donations from coal companies. Since he started his gubernatorial campaign in 2009, Ohio’s King Coal has donated almost one million dollars to statewide and legislative candidates. The Lion's share of that money came from just two coal companies: Boich Companies and Murray Energy.

            It looks like Elmaraghy is a man who does his job. Environmental interests describe him as fair-minded. It also looks like the big dollars of King Coal gets them what they want, too. 

Robert Murray Has a Tantrum Over Obama's Election and 156 People Lose Their Jobs

Following through as he had threatened to do earlier, Robert E. Murray has laid off 156 employees of his mining company, Murray Energy. Other business people have made similar threats concerning Obama’s reelection. I only know of this one instance with Murray Energy in which those threats have been made real.

On this Fox Business show, in a rather besieged tone, Murray said that he anticipates reduced economic activity and reduced power use, although current trends indicate an expanding economy with greater energy use. He went on to call the president a liar and “unfit to guide this country.”

            As I have blogged before, coal is in decline, but not because of Barack Obama. The market for coal has been diminished by falling gas prices. As well, in Appalachia, most of the easily mined (and therefore cheap) coal has already been shipped off to power plants. Whoever occupies the Oval Office cannot change these two facts. Murray is correct in asserting that Romney would most likely loosen restrictions on coal mining, as was done by George W. Bush. Presently, however, a change in regulations would have little effect on the coal market or the ability of the mining companies to extract coal.

If anything, this is purely a political temper tantrum, and one that has real people hurting. As the folks who got laid off point out, nothing has changed in the last few days, besides the election, that would have any bearing on the ability of Murray Energy to dig up coal and sell it. There is no real economic reason for the layoffs. It is merely headline grabbing political theatre.

Murray has demonstrated before that he is not above using his employees for political purposes. Earlier this year he required miners at one of his mines to attend a Romney rally, an event for which they were not paid. Murray Energy also pressured employees to donate to their GOP supporting political action committee, with the company tracking who was and who was not giving money to the PAC.

Because the workers were “at will” employees, the layoffs seem to be legal. I have a hard time with this. An America that is supposed to honor the people who work to put food on their tables and care for their children should not allow those people to lose their jobs because the CEO of their company decides to have a post election hissy fit.