The Death of Coal

We ought to be able to run the sewer lines from our houses to the nearest drainage opportunity. Overbearing government regulation is making the cost of building and maintaining homes unbearable and contributes to the decline in housing starts. The added cost of government regulation is a burden on our already frail economy and costs jobs.

Would you agree or disagree with the preceding statement. I think and sincerely hope that you would disagree. The obvious degradation of the environment and property values would be enormous in addition to the odor and public health risk. However that line of reasoning is exactly the one being used in the defense of the coal industry and the EPA regulations concerning surface mining and reclamation.

Governor Beshear, who I am tempted to call a DINO, Representatives Keith Hall (D-Phelps) and Jim Gooch (D-Providence) are all up in arms about the war on coal. They claim that egregious regulation is responsible for the decline of the use of coal and the resulting job loss in the coalfields. Cost is always a factor when producing any kind of product and coal is not exempted. Just as housing is subjected to environmental regulations that drive up the cost of a home so is the coal industry. Just as public health is a factor in housing regulations so is it a factor in regulations governing the coal industry.

The Environmental Protection Agency has long been accused of not being active enough in regulation of the coal industry often leaving the leading role up to the states. The result has been ineffective enforcement, degradation of the streams of our state and injuries that were preventable to our citizens. The problem is that coal, or any kind of energy production, has never been subject to bearing the true cost of its production. This keeps costs down for the producer but passes those costs on to the citizenry at large in the way of contaminated water and increased taxation to clean up the mess and provide sanitary water. Just as housing has been required to bear the costs of insuring the environment is unharmed so should the coal industry be held to similar constraints. Will this drive up the cost of coal? Absolutely. Will this make coal users look at alternative fuel sources? Without a doubt. Is this a good reason to allow the coal industry to destroy the land and streams of the Commonwealth. No way!

All production of products should have to bear the true cost of the product and that includes whatever is required to deal with the results of that production. If we have a problem with plastic bottles then plastic bottle production should bear the cost. That increased burden to the producer will result in research and development of new products and processes that will eliminate that burden and decrease costs to the consumer. Yes, it may also result in decreased consumption but that is just an added benefit.

The increased availability of natural gas has rendered coal an undesirable if not obsolete fuel. The science that supports human influenced climate change is nearing the undeniable and for many it is already there. What will be the costs of droughts such as our plains are experiencing and inundations and floods elsewhere. The costs of basic sustenance will rise and poverty and want will increase. Fact of the matter is that the production of natural gas, while cleaner to use, still has its environmental hurdles to overcome. The process of “fracking” which has made that gas accessible is strongly suspected of polluting the ground water and the deep aquifers that supply us with much of our drinking water. This pollution is not bacterial and is much harder to remove through treatment and most water systems do not even test for these pollutants much less treat for them.

The reason these politicians and their corporate sponsors have alleged a “war on coal” is to secure jobs for the residents of the coalfields. That is an enormous load of horse hockey. The reason is to secure profits and the massive contributions to campaigns that the industry makes. If our leaders had dealt with the obvious we would not be in this position now.

For over a century now Kentucky has borne the burden of having robber barons come into our state and pillage the wealth of natural resources that Kentucky has been blessed with. First the timber industry denuded the mountains which resulted in the erosion of the topsoil and loss of habitat for wildlife. Up until then Kentuckians had scratched a meager living out of the soil but afterward even that was gone. It has taken nearly a century to reintroduce species into the mountains that were once abundant. Then came coal which raped the landowners with the rapaciousness of the broad form deed which deprived the owners of the use of their land. Then the deed was applied to surface mining which deprived the landowners of anything but scrabble. Fortunately the broad form deed was held too odious and its application to surface mining was restricted but the desolation of the land continued. The sad story is that Kentucky has not benefited from this industry but is left, in many cases, with little more than a Superfund cleanup site. A strong case can be made that these industries overall have been a net negative for the state. Sure, there have been some relatively high paying jobs but the cost of repairing the degradation of these jobs has yet to be counted.

Jamie Lucke of the Lexington Herald-Leader wrote an excellent series of reports on the coal industry for which she received a Scripps Howard award. Read them. If you would like access to them you can write me.

My take on the “war on coal.”