On coal, Trump and his EPA chief play Kentuckians for suckers once again
"The war against coal is over,"
This was no surprise. Pruitt has spent his career as a shameless tool of the fossil fuel industries. He denies the overwhelming scientific evidence of climate change because it is bad for the businesses that pour money into his pockets.
Pruitt has been clear about his desire to put industry profits ahead of environmental protection and public health. He is doing all he can to neuter the agency he was appointed to lead.
Polls show most Americans want a cleaner environment and are worried about climate change. And why shouldn't they be? The nation has been struck by three monster hurricanes this fall and wildfires are decimating
Puitt flew to
Coal employment has been declining for decades because of industry mechanization. Where was McConnell's concern for coal jobs then? Now, the coal industry is trying to scrape the last measure of profits from Appalachia's land and people before the dwindling coal reserves there are exhausted.
Coal barons and their sponsored politicians have convinced a lot of Kentuckians that environmental regulations are mainly to blame for the industry's rapid decline. Never mind that for more than a century coal has polluted
Trump carried Appalachia by making wild promises he can never keep about putting tens of thousands of coal miners back to work. So far, the results have been negligible -- and they will continue to be.
Trump and his appointees can change government policy, but they can't change the laws of economics or take America back to the 1940s, or even the 1980s, when coal was king. Anyone who thinks they can is a sucker.
Coal is under attack, not so much by sensible environmental regulation as by human progress and modern economics in the form of cheap natural gas and increasingly viable alternative energy sources.
Even if Pruitt succeeds in repealing the Clean Power Plan despite legal challenges, it won't make much difference. The utility industry is already moving on to the future; that's what smart business people do.
As president, Trump's budget proposed abolishing the
Then Trump backed a Republican health care plan that would have cost thousands of Eastern Kentuckians their health insurance coverage and eliminated thousands of health care jobs in the region.
Trump's
Then the
The "war on coal" -- in other words, regulation of the coal industry -- may be over. But Trump and his administration have clearly declared war on coal country and the people who live there, most of whom voted for him.
How long will Kentuckians continue to suckers?
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