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Alpha Natural Resources, one of the nation’s largest coal producers, announced on Tuesday that it planned to idle eight mines in Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia, reducing its annual production by 16 million tons. The move will include laying off 1,200 of 13,000 employees. The company said that it was trying to meet the “evolving demands of a changing global coal market” and that it would continue selling coal in the United States while focusing new efforts on overseas markets.
The coal industry has been hit by competition from cheap natural gas, but Alpha made clear in its announcement that an equal problem is a Washington “regulatory environment that’s aggressively aimed at constraining the use of coal.” That’s a direct reference to the deluge of Obama Environmental Protection Agency regulations designed to force the closure of coal-fired power plants.
And yet Obama has the nerve to say he represents the middle class.
Note that in 2007 there were 1,374 operating coal mines; in 2008 the number increased to 1,458. Then the number began to go down, no doubt in large part due to the tremendous decrease in the cost of natural gas that began around that time.
Nevertheless, from 2009 to 2010 coal production actually increased:
Now I recognize what President Obama said back then in 2008, and I certainly do not want to see my electricity rates skyrocket. However, the cap and trade bill is dead. Plus, if Obama wanted to destroy the coal industry, he is doing a poor job of it. We are still digging out lots of coal. Fewer coal companies, yes, but more efficient and digging out more coal.
Now I recognize what President Obama said back then in 2008, and I certainly do not want to see my electricity rates skyrocket. However, the cap and trade bill is dead. Plus, if Obama wanted to destroy the coal industry, he is doing a poor job of it. We are still digging out lots of coal. Fewer coal companies, yes, but more efficient and digging out more coal.
Yes, Cap and Trade is dead (thankfully) so Obama does an end-around Congress and makes his EPA do his bidding.
You DO notice that they blamed the EPA....right?
So it seems that it's the EPA to blame for mines that wouldn't have closed otherwise.
Yes, they are sure focusing on jobs! This administration is bought and paid for by the treehuggers.
If it wasn't for us "treehuggers" your beautiful pristine rivers and relatively clean air would be mercury, arsenic and lead laden, stinking, fetid, toxic sewers like in China. It's tough to whine about jobs when you're dead.
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