Green jobs for the coalfields: Did Obama bury the lead?
Amid all the other reactions to the Obama administration’s announced plans for dealing with mountaintop removal, I am sitting here on a Friday afternoon, wondering if they — and the rest of us — buried the lead.
There it is, at the bottom of their list of proposals:
Federal agencies will work in coordination with appropriate regional, state and local entities to help diversify and strengthen the Appalachian regional economy and promote the health and welfare of Appalachian communities.
What? Who? When? How?
We should all want to know the answers to those questions … our elected officials — from Sen. Byrd to Gov. Manchin and down to county commissioners and mayors — should all be demanding to know.
President Obama campaigned at least in part on promises that he would “green the economy” with lots of good, new jobs based on alternative energy industries. And whether anyone likes it or not, efforts to deal with global warming — another Obama priority — are going to impact coalfield communities. Our leaders would be right to ask what is going to be done to give our people jobs in this new economy.
We in the media should be asking, too. But instead, we get stories like this one from Tim Huber over at The Associated Press, which buys into Manchin’s reaction that the Obama plan for more closely regulating mountaintop removal is somehow going to stop construction of wind- or solar-energy facilities on blown up and flattened mountaintops.
No one from the Manchin administration has made a persuasive argument that the governor’s new post-mining land use law is actually going to encourage real development of mountaintop removal sites. They haven’t explained why — given all of the sites that have already been flattened and not developed — West Virginia (or anywhere else in Appalachi, for that matter) needs to flatten more mountains. If Gov. Manchin has some prospects for a wind energy production facility or a factory to build wind turbine components, my guess is that Mike Whitt down at the Mingo County Redevelopment Authority could give him a couple of sits to choose from. And, of course, Manchin’s big energy bill, also passed by legislators this year, bends over so far to make sure to include coal that it will probably do very little to actually encourage alternative energy production to grow in our state.
The only example of any sort of development that Manchin says the Obama EPA’s review of mountaintop removal permits is hampering? Check it out, from Huber’s story:
“There’s no plateaus, there’s nothing flat, there’s nothing to build on,” Manchin said Friday, adding that creating buildable land is essential to adding renewable energy sources such as crops for making ethanol. “We need some agricultural land, we need wind farms, we need solar.
“We can start developing things from that and we can be part of this new greening of America.” Persuading the Obama administration, however, figures to be tough. So far, efforts have failed to win approval from federal agencies for a surface mine that would include construction of 5 miles of rough roadbed.
Huh?
I’ve written before about Green Jobs for the Coalfields, but so far the only one of Obama’s proposals that seemed like it might help coalfield communities — spending more money to clean up abandoned coal mines –has been abandoned.
But it’s probably little wonder that the Obama administration doesn’t seem that interested in places like Southern West Virginia. And I don’t think it’s because he thinks we’re a bunch of racists who didn’t and won’t ever vote for him.
Instead, consider what kind of talk you hear from West Virginia political leaders about greening the economy. Â Even Congressman Nick Rahall — who uses political power to protect wilderness and, on most national conservation issues is among the most green members of the House — disses green jobs, as if the very idea were some kind of fantasy.
And, of course, the coal industry’s lobbyists are quick to try to squelch any talk of green jobs or greener sources of energy.
Bruce Watzman, a lobbyist for the National Mining Association, posted a comment on Coal Tattoo this week that said:
For the benefit of your readers and in the interest of complete transparency it should be noted that the agency documents also reference stimulating “green jobs.â€
According to report issued earlier this year by the Apollo Alliance, jobs in wind and solar pay between $21,500 and $44,000 per year on average. Coal miners in W.Va. earn on average $66,000/year, excluding overtime and benefits.
On one level, Watzman is right. Faced with an industry restructuring that could cost mining jobs, coal miners (and their union — what few union miners are left though the UMWA represents just 8 percent of Appalachian surface mine worker (1,514 union miners versus 16,837 non-union, according to the Department of Energy), the union rightly wants a voice in the debate) want to know how they’re going to support their families to the level they’ve become accustomed to — will green jobs be good jobs?
That’s just the question the report Watzman cited sought to answer. It’s called “High Road or Low Road? Job Quality In the New Green Economy,” and it was put together by the group Good Jobs First, which has done some great work on the issue of wasted subsidies by government economic development programs.
I took at look at the report, commissioned by a coalition of labor and environmental groups, and indeed it is not all good news about green jobs:
Our review of working conditions in three core sectors of the emerging green economy — wind and solar component manufacturing; green construction; and recycling — suggests one basic conclusion: The fact that an employer is engaged in a business that benefits the environment does not necessarily mean that the employees of that enterprise are going to be treated well. While some green companies are model employers, others pay their workers too little and offer them inadequate benefits. Purportedly green firms have in some cases resorted to union-busting and the exploitation of undocumented immigrants. In short, the green economy is not always a humane economy.
But, the report offers some recommendations to deal with these problems. Among them:
– Pass the Employee Free Choice Act, to give workers “their best hope of a fair wage and a voice on the job.”
– Attach “self-sufficiency wage requirements” to government economic development subsidies.
– Apply wage standards to government contractors, and strengthen prevailing wage requirements.
– Add labor criteria to the LEED green building standards, so that environmentally friendly construction is also worker friendly.
Greg LeRoy, Good Jobs First executive director, said:
This use of taxpayer money provides an opportunity to raise wages and other working conditions. Many states and localities already apply job quality standards to companies receiving job subsidies or public contracts. In the report we urge wider and more aggressive use of such standards by federal as well as state and local agencies.
I’ll be waiting for the National Mining Association — which cited this report to criticize green jobs — to issue a statement in support of these kind of reforms. Wouldn’t measures that force other energy industries to provide pay comparable to coal mining help keep coal competitive?
16 comments
That is 100% right prevailing wage is the key to make it work and buying American, there also needs to be sanctions against buying coal and green energy products from China who is one of the largest manufacturers of green products. If we’re going to do carbon capture it needs to be bituminous (Which is the best grade and is usually deep mined) coal mined in the USA and manufactures all green energy products in the USA. Let’s not put our coal miners out of work with a bunch of regulations only to buy coal strip mined in China and create our green economy based on products made in China. This will be the key to make it all happen. China already owns enough of our country let not hand over our energy market to them also.
From your blog: …federal agencies will work in coordination with appropriate regional, state and local entities to help diversify and strengthen the Appalachian regional economy and promote the health and welfare of Appalachian communities.
Your comment: What? Who? When? How? My comment: Ask not what your Country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your Country. Look not to the Government to end practices you disagree with while expecting the government to replace those practices with jobs & practices you hold dear.
In response to Mr. Watzman, it should be noted that there are less than 7,000 workers employed on strip-mines in West Virginia. By comparison, a single wind manufacturing plant in Pennsylvania employs nearly 1,300 workers, consistently. And that is in a market that is going to be growing for a long time and that is fed by the need to replace the turbines every 20-25 years.
Coal mines eventually close, and the coal will eventually run out, and sooner than the NMA is willing to admit. If I was an unemployed miner right now, once again experiencing the natural bust cycle of coal, and I was looking at my family wondering what happened to that $60,000+ job I just had, I’m pretty sure I’d be pretty happy with a $44,000 job constructing wind turbines — a job that I was pretty sure I’d have indefinitely.
Can’t say that about coal. Thinking about it another way, if I’m a strip-miner making $60K a year without a pension fund in place b/c the company I worked for had busted the unions, and I worked on a site for two years and made a total of $120K, but then got laid off because the coal market crashed and I didn’t know when I’d find another job…well, there i am with $120K and no future security.
However, say I work in a turbine manufacturing plant, and I’m making $40K a year. Well, over the same three year span as the surface miner, I’m making the same amount of money — $120K. The difference is, I still have a job, and if the cards were played right, I’m part of the United Electrical Workers union, I have a pension building up, and I’m not worried about when the price of wind will drop again because to me, that just means more work, not less.
This is all hypothetical of course, but I believe I’ve made some good points. Stability is greater than affluence, and workers rights can and should and will be protected if our state government does what is right and just for the workers of this state.
For the benefit of the future of West Virginia and of the coalfields of the southern counties, I ask the coal industry to do the right thing and step aside. Stop fighting true opportunity and progress. Put some of those millions you’ve made back into the communities in the form of schools and environmental remediation and worker training programs. Stop being so “Coal.” It’s time to accept the reality of a changing world and to reform your own business agenda in order to take advantage of it.
A word or two of comment about your latest blog spot.
First, the correct spelling is “lede” not “lead.” I guess spelling is something else that has been lost from journalism school.
Second, lets talk about basic economics.
Simply leaving some flat land isn’t enough to attract industry. If it were, we would have wall-to-wall auto plants from the Ohio River to the foothills of the Rockies. It also takes a modern transportation infrastructure (highways, rail, water and air) to attract industry.
Only now is southern West Virginia beginning to have the type of transportation options needed for major developments. Remember, it has only been a few years since Corridor G was finished to Williamson and the Coalfields Expressway is still under construction (with help from the coal industry and mountaintop mining).
We still don’t have adequate water, sewer or even cell and broadband availability in southern West Virginia so those must come on line before real development can begin. Of course, that takes a commitment from state, local and federal officials to provide that infrastructure.
As for air travel, we shot ourselves in the foot a few years ago due to the short sightedness of the folks in Charleston and Huntington as well as the good ol’ Charleston Gazette.
Development doesn’t just happen. It takes planning, resources (including flat land) and commitment. The coal industry can provide that land. It is up to us to provide the rest.
Publius
Publius, don’t be so anal.
“Lead” is just as correct as “lede,” however folks stop using the latter term decades ago.
Your attempt to paint MTR operators as do-gooders is clearly motivated by personal gain.
I agree that much needs done to improve the water quality, thanks to the toxins pumped underground from “cleaning” the coal.
By your standards, MTR has given us flat land for development. I would think 300,000 acres is plenty of flat land, so please, take your destructive practices elsewhere.
Clearly you have access to teh internet (which is surprising since you enjoy archaic English), so things must not be too shabby for you.
I agree with you on one thing. Our state leadership needs to be focused on redeveloping the economy of the coalfields NOW before our supplies run out. Obama and the EPA have made their intention to diversify the economy clear - our officials need to stop shilling for their campaign contributors and planning a real future for our state.
[…] View original post here: Blogs @ The Charleston Gazette - » Green jobs for the coalfields … […]
Publius,
As another reader pointed out, either spelling is correct.
See:
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/lead%5B2%5D
or
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/lede
My AP stylebook does not express a preference for either.
But besides that, you show a complete lack of understanding of the federal Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act … the Act makes it the responsibility of coal operators to propose post-mining development plans for mountaintop removal sites as part of their permit applications.
You need to read Section 515 (c) of the Act, or simply look at my story on this subject from the Gazette’s Mining the Mountains website,
http://wvgazette.com/News/MiningtheMountains/200803100636
Ken.
FYI -
A new Pew report on the “clean energy economy” says there are more than 3,000 people now employed in that sector in WV - about one fifth the number of coal miners. Not bad, considering coal has been here for more than a century and a half, while these other industries are so new they’re still, um, green.
More to the point, the Pew study found that nationally those jobs grew by better than twice the rate of the average for all industries over the last ten years - 9.1% vs 3.9% from ‘98 to 2007 - growing even during the recession.
www.pewtrusts.org/cleanenergyeconomy.
Years ago, California faced something similar. Miners discovered the remains of ancient rivers high in the Sierra—giant rivers that, 40 million years before, washed gravel and gold out of lost, ancestral mountains and whose beds were then lifted thousands of feet in the air by the rising Sierra. The miners learned, with hydraulic pressure, they could take out whole mountainsides to get at the gold. John McPhee has written that miners would wash down twelve million pounds of gravel for a single pound of gold and still make a killing. Along the Yuba River, enough material came down in one year to fill the Erie Canal. Towns and croplands were flooded. The bed of the Sacramento River was raised 7’. Navigation was blocked. The Golden Gate turned brown.
It took the better part of a decade and millions of tons of Sierra were lost in the meantime, but Californians stopped hydraulic mining. The profits from destruction weren’t worth the environmental price. That was at the end of the 19th Century.
We can only do better now.
–Monica V.
There is pressure now being placed on Appalachian Power/Wheeling Electric/AEP to implement energy-saving programs such as those working successfully in a number of states. This will be heard the week of June 15-19 at the Public Service Commission in Charleston. A new report by the Appalachian Regional Commission published this year finds that we can save 20 to 25 percent of total electric power consumed, at a fraction of the cost of building new plants, regardless of whether they are coal-fired or green. The report, found here, gives details on specifically how customers can improve energy efficiency. http://www.arc.gov/index.do?nodeId=3335
Where utilities are required to provide these services to residential, commercial and industrial customers, thousands of jobs are created and all customers save money on bills. Costs of building future generation capacity are avoided, thus stabilizing the prive of fuel and stabilizing the power transmission grid. West Virginia Citizens Action Group is formally intervening in the rate case now before the PSC and will be testifying at the PSC this week. They are located at 201 Brooks Street, Charleston, and the hearings begin Monday June 15 at 9am.
This is from Rahm E’s replacement in the House, and I assure you his constituents, neighbors of mine, are more of his way of thinking than the guy whispering into Obama’s ears:
June 10, 2009 10:44 AM
WASHINGTON, DC - This morning, U.S. Rep. Mike Quigley delivered the following statement to the House of Representatives regarding “clean” coal and the need for green jobs:
Mister Speaker, nothing about coal is clean.
From extraction, to waste slurry, to stream contamination in Appalachia – nothing, I repeat, nothing about this energy source is clean . . . Green jobs are the key to economic and environmental progress in regions torn by surface and mountaintop mining and struggling economically due to the destruction of the land.
http://quigley.house.gov/2009/06/congressman-quigley-speaks-on-house-floor-about-need-for-green-jobs.shtml
video
http://progressillinois.com/2009/6/12/quigley-nothing-clean-coal
How do we build the political power so our politicians are working for true alternative energy and energy conservation?
14,000 Americans work the surface coal mines of Appalachia. More than 24,000 Americans die from the pollution from coal-fired power plants each year. The miners earn $66,000 a year. A heart attack costs more than $50,000. Is something out of whack here?
Sure people die from heart attacks, but the coal operators will tell you that it is not caused by the pollution from coal fired power plants. Many Massey Energy, Inc. mountaintop mining sites are being shut down each week, but it is not caused by people protesting at these mines. The first you hear from these laid off miners is, “What am I going to do now? ” I need money to make payments on two trucks, my wife’s cars, and my son’s four-wheeler.” Well, all they have to do is ask Massey for a loan. The chances of Massey helping out a laid off miner is zero. Oh yes, they can draw unemployment benefits for 26 weeks. Let them live on that. Will Massey hire them back? Maybe unless something can be found against their work habits, and pity those that have talked about joining up with the UMWA.
eastwood78,
Sure many people are suffering from heart attacks, I would think that many more are caused by too many bacon sandwiches and too little exercise. I’m a proud non union miner and don’t sit around dreaming about membership. Yes many mines are closing and many miners are being layed off. As for a loan from a coal company to survive, I was smart and saved my money so I can weather this storm. Most people don’t know, surface mining is the most common form of mining world wide. Most metals are mined this way as are some diamonds. Surface equipment operators need only look on the internet to find a job some where. It may be in another country but they are in demand. I have personally checked on employment in the oil sand mines of northern canada. 150,000 per year is the norm not the exception. If moutain top removal is outlawed then my family and myself are headed north. Aside from trucks and atv’s there are other things mtr provides for my family. Mainly food and shelter.
Scott, I am glad that you saved your money in case of a lay off or a mine shut down. I know that MTR provide miners with enough money to take care of their families with food and shelter. The UMWA is involved in MTR to, and besides the MTR mining sites shutting down, there are underground coal mines that are shutting down and laying off miners. They say this is only a temporary shut down, and I hope this is true for both non-union and UMWA miners. It is good to know that you can go North to get a job, but many miners will not have the experience you have to do that. MTR could get along if Massey and other coal operators would follow the rules of the Clean Water Act. Mr. Roberts of the UMWA does not want to do away with MTR. You have a right to work for who ever you choose. The union is not forced on anyone. I would hope that you and your buddies would think about what mountaintop mining is doing to our state and the water that people must drink. Some of the pictures I have seen of MTR water run off , and it is not fit for a dog or any other animal to drink let alone people. Let us all try not to give West Virginia a bad name by letting the world see what we are doing to the beautiful mountains that God provided for us to enjoy. Going Green will provide jobs for many more years than MTR will, and when MTR mining gets all the coal from the mountain sites, what then? They move on and leave horrible devastation and ugly scars of the once green mountains behind. God bless America and West Virginia.
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