by Ivy Brashear
Senator Mitch McConnell followed up his recent trip to eastern Kentucky with an
editorial in the Hazard Herald that makes some interesting and misleading claims about coal mining in the region. Even more importantly, it avoids comment on the critical question we should all be asking: What are we going to do to build a new economy as coal in eastern Kentucky goes away?
McConnell wrote that “President Obama’s policies have raised energy rates, decreased domestic energy production, and cost jobs,” and that “a barrage” of EPA regulations has strangled the coal industry. After four years, he says, “it is clear this administration has declared war on coal.”
Since this President was elected, his policies and the EPA have been blamed for the decline of coal. Yet serious and consistent evidence points to major changes in the economy of coal that deserve the primary blame. McConnell’s repeating of this “EPA is the problem” story continues to get in the way of the critical conversation about what is next for our economy.
The reasons for Appalachia’s coal-production decline are more complex and varied than McConnell lets on. The meteoric rise in natural gas production and the rapid decline of easily minable coal in Appalachia are certainly factors. Stricter EPA Clean Air Act regulation that drives utilities to shutter coal-fired power plants in favor of cleaner-burning natural gas plants also plays a role. The international coal market, which is growing fastest in Asia, relies heavily on western coal from Wyoming’s Powder River Basin because it takes less time to transport it to Asia.
Recent data do show that production and employment in 2012 was down in eastern Kentucky mines, but the numbers also show that coal production and employment in western Kentucky mines actually slightly increased in 2012. If a war on coal actually were raging in Kentucky, then mines in the western half of the state would be experiencing employment and production casualties, too.
If a step is taken back from the “war on coal” debate, it’s clear to see all the tangible ways that Appalachia’s economy can be improved.
Coal is important, it's history and heritage, it's provided a purpose and a living for thousands through the decades, but its days are dwindling and no number of EPA permits will make our coal competitive with the price of Wyoming coal or Illinois basin coal or natural gas. There's an old saying, "Adapt or die," and at the Appalachia's Bright Future conference, we heard about different communities that either heeded or ignored that adage when their dominant industr fell on hard times. The Daily Yonder today 
