‘Not looking good’: Coal workers see future dim amid regulation burden

Fox News ^ | January 16, 2014 | Mike Tobin

[Olog-hai]

Far below the Appalachian Mountains, in a space barely big enough to stand up straight, Bobby Combs works a job his father and his grandfather worked. Coal-mining is the highest-paying job available to him in eastern Kentucky. As he skillfully maneuvers a massive machine and rips into a seam of coal, though, Combs wonders if the family tradition ends with him.

“It’s not looking good,” he says, dirt smudging his face.

Coal has come under the crosshairs of the Obama administration in the push to transition to renewable energy sources. Coal mines are burdened with a never-ending stream of federal regulations.

The owner of the mine where Combs works said the cost of getting coal out of the ground has tripled. For him, that means job insecurity. “It seems like everything on the coal industry is under siege, everything is under attack,” he said. …

[ltc8k6]

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2014/01/energy-one-lump-or-two.php

“But if you draw back a bit and take a look around the world, what you find is that the fastest growing source of energy continues to be: Coal.”

[Graybeard58]

Obama’s stand on coal was well known before either of his elections. How anyone in West Virginia or any coal producing stae could vote for him is a mystery to me.

He told people, in no uncertain terms, what he was going to do to the coal industry.

[ogen hal]

Anyone anywhere who is effected so but voted for LIBs/DIMs at any level deserves what they get.

[umgud]

Hey, if coal can’t compete against wind and solar, they should go the way of the buggy whip.

[Still Thinking]

And they didn’t vote for him. Either time. Unfortunately they’re still being punished for the stupidity of the people in all the other states.

[digger48]

coal doesn’t have to compete with wind and solar.

It just has to sit there idling, waiting to to go, for all of the times that wind and solar put out doodley squat.

Coal only has to compete with politics

[smoothsailing]

.. / .... .- - . / -— ...- .- .-.. - .. -. . / .. / -.. .-. .- -. -.- / .. - / .-.. -— -. —. / . -. -— ..- —. .... / - -— / —. . - / .- / -.-. .- .—. - .- .. -. / — .. -.. -. .. —. .... - / ... . -.-. .-. . - / -.. . -.-. -— -.. . .-. / .-. .. -. —.

[umgud]

I should have used a /s tag.

[digger48]

I shoulda known. :)

[GizzyGirl]

I feel sorry for every person, every state, every job lost... But more importantly I feel sorry for the people of the great USA, myself and my family included. Such a sad state of affairs, my hope is uneducated voters are getting education of a lifetime and suddenly get smart. Realistic? I don’t know but I am trying to keep my hopes up. It’s NOT easy!

[St_Thomas_Aquinas]

I don’t know but I am trying to keep my hopes up. It’s NOT easy!

The only good thing about the last five years is that the conservative/RINO split is finally out in the open.

[GizzyGirl]

Love your reply... So true!!!

[Olog-hai]

Yes, after quite a few decades.

[nathanbedford]

Your observations raise fundamental questions concerning representative government.

You are both quite right, the people of West Virginia, Western Virginia, Kentucky and Pennsylvania failed to vote their interests as far as Obama's election was concerned, TWO TIMES. Now, they are paying the price. The question for us is how did this happen? How is it that a man who told the world that he was about, in effect, to shutdown the coal industry and inferentially increase electricity prices for all of us get elected?

We all know that Obama was a media creation, an empty suit otherwise, who rode a wave of media manufactured Bush hatred and media manufactured adulation into the Oval Office. By experience or achievement, Obama was less qualified than any president in the 20th century to hold the office.

If we want to win elections we should try to understand how it is that the people of West Virginia would put a Democrat senator in office when they should have known a couple years into his first term what they were getting from Obama. We want to understand the low information voter who was so ignorant that he does not even vote his own interests. We should try to understand how it is that the Democrat party has got a whole demographics to vote not their interests but their tribe.

In other words, we should try to understand the dynamic that puts Democrats in office and keeps conservatives out of office against not just logic but against the pocketbook interests of those voters.

While we are considering how it is that low information voters failed to vote their pocketbooks, we should also consider how it came to be that well informed and well-heeled business interests like the coal industry failed to mobilize to defeat Obama as the health insurance industry had mobilized to defeat Hillary care? What changed?

We saw the same phenomenon on Wall Street. My point is that we do not understand on several levels what it is that drives the voters to the voting booths and what it is that finances those who drive them.

[Joe Boucher]

the vast majority of these coal workers vote for and support Manchin, obammy and others who are trying to desstroy coal.

[Eagles6]

It buries wind and solar which is why it must be crushed using the power of the federal gov.

If it was up to the free market wind and solar would be virtually nonexistant.

[ilovesarah2012]

Obama has told Americans about his plans all along, from bankrupting the coal industry to redistributing wealth, to single-payer healthcare, to immigration. The only thing I remember him changing his position on was homosexual marriage. The facts were out there, yet Americans voted for him anyway. It’s a little too late to complain that he is doing what he said he would.

FUBO
FUJK
FUHC
FUKS

and everyone who voted for this POS.

[NorthMountain]

>> {Coal} just has to sit there idling, waiting to to go, for all of the times that wind and solar put out doodley squat.

That's not entirely true ... underground mines in particular must be maintained continuously, or they will flood, possibly collapse in some spots. If truly shut down, they are very (sometimes prohibitively) expensive to re-open. Obama probably doesn't know this, but there are likely people in his traitorous administration who do.

[NorthMountain]

>> You are both quite right, the people of West Virginia, Western Virginia, Kentucky and Pennsylvania failed to vote their interests as far as Obama's election was concerned, TWO TIMES.

You need to explain yourself.

In what way did "the people" of West Virginia and Kentucky fail to vote their interests as far as Obama's election was concerned. Please identify for us the winner of Kentucky's and West Virginia's electoral votes in the 2008 and 2012 Presidential Elections.