TO THE EDITOR,
Jobs … that’s what is important today.
Our nation is struggling 14 million people out of work, homes and cars being repossessed and children going hungry. Yet for some folks it seems their narrow political agenda has to come before any consideration for its impact on people.
The West Virginia Sierra Club seems so intent on imposing its “green” agenda on our people that they are willing to bankrupt our people and our state to do so.
A recent story by AP’s Vicki Smith is an example in point …
In a piece written June 23, Smith outlined the effort by the Sierra Club to force West Virginia’s freshman Congressman, David McKinley (R-1st District) to withdraw a bill he sponsored that would ensure the continued beneficial use of coal ash and strengthen state authority to dispose of the materials.
It aims to prevent the Obama administration from attempting to reclassify the materials as hazardous waste and is an extension of his effort to require the EPA ot consider economic impacts when creating policy.
McKinley cited a study that contends designating fly ash as hazardous could cost morethan 300,000 jobs over 20 years.
"We must continue to push legislation that will help keep the cost of doing business down and the cost to consumers low if we ever intend to get our country out of this recession," he said.
An application of common sense, as McKinley’s bill would require on the part of the EPA, is apparently too much ask for the Sierra Club.
“That creates a very mixed message. We think that he really should do what's best for the citizens of West Virginia and not just for a few special interests,” Smith quotes Kotcon as saying.
We agree.
We believe Rep. McKinley should do what is best for the people of our state and not just for a few special interests .. namely The Sierra Club and other radical anti-coal, anti-industry groups.
A year ago, The Sierra Club claimed “victory” over some 100 coal-fired power plants that they claimed they stopped from being built. This victory was no victory for the unemployed people of this state and this nation.
Those 100 power plants, had they been built, would have used some 160 million tons of coal – essentially the amount produced by the industry in West Virginia each year. This could have resulted in almost 20,000 additional coal mining jobs across the country and another 40,000 support jobs. In other words, there are 60,000 people who potentially could have had well-paying jobs with benefits. Using West Virginia as an example, this would potentially have meant another $3.4 billion in wages and $26 billion in total economic impact. A “victory?”
Just a few days ago, American Electric Power Company announced it is idling some 6000 megawatts of power generation capacity, closing several power plants right here in West Virginia. Their decision is part of their effort to meet EPA demands.
What does this mean for you?
AEP says it will result in a losts of some 600 jobs, just at the closing power plants. The company says it will result in rate increases from 15-35 percent and could lead to reliability concerns (ie. blackouts and brownouts).
Using the estimated amount of coal that would have been burned at the closed power plants (16.8 million tons) calculated using the tons of coal per mwh conversion from the Union of Concerned Scientists’ website as a base and dividing that by the amount of coal an average West Virginia coal miner produces each year (6,857 tons), calculated by taking the total amount of coal produced last year (144 million tons) and dividing it by the number of working coal miners in the state (21,000), the total job losses in the coal industry in West Virginia of approximately 1,575 mining jobs and 2,450 mining jobs regionally .
Using the economic multiplier of three derived from the WVU/MU Joint Study on the Economic Impact of Coal (2010) , and combining that with the 600 direct jobs lost expected at AEP (1,800 using a factor of three multiplier), we see a total potential job loss of 10,623 jobs regionally, with many of these coming in West Virginia as well.
McKinley issued a statement from Washington, D.C, welcoming the debate.
"Public health is just as important as jobs, and they are not mutually exclusive in this case," he said. "By passing this bill, we will strengthen environmental protections and protect hundreds of thousands of jobs."
We agree with Rep. McKinley’s conclusions.
Chris Hamilton
Senior Vice President
West Virginia Coal Association
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