Somebody give the EPA’s Mr. Curt Spalding a hankie. He’s all tore up about having to kill the coal industry.
“But know right now we are struggling. We’re struggling ’cause we’re trying to do our Jobs. Lisa Jackson has put forth a very powerful message to the country. Just two days ago, the decision on greenhouse gas performance standards and saying basically gas plants are the performance standards which means if you want to build a coal plant you got a big problem. That was a huge decision. You can’t imagine how tough that was. Because you gotta remember if you go to West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and all those places you have whole communities that depend on coal. And to say that we just think those communities should just go away, we can’t do that. But she had to do what the law and policy suggested. It, it’s painful, it’s painful every step of the way.”
We all feel your pain Mr. Spalding. You have a really tough job, but doggone it, somebody has to do it. Perhaps you can find someone in Haysi, VA, (Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling’s hometown), who will let you cry on their shoulder. The people of Hurley, VA, (where I used to live), are kind souls too, maybe you can tell them this sob story about how much you hurt. Or try Ben Hur, VA, where my mom was raised by a coal miner.
There are literally hundreds, if not thousands, of communities in Southwest Virginia, Eastern Kentucky, Southern West Virginia, and Western Pennsylvania that will be crushed under your heartbreaking EPA rules.
No, not everyone in these communities work at a coal mine. Some work at a gas station where miners fuel up. Some drive great big trucks hauling coal. And burning fuel. Some are hairdressers and barbers where miner families are customers. Some own grocery stores, and shoe shops, and hardware stores, there are car repair shops and bait shops. Even gun shops.
All would die when coal closes down. Maybe all this is simply a means to re-open Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty, again on the backs of the good people of Appalachia. In the first one poverty lost and Government won.
Oh, some mines would continue to operate of course. The coal would go to China. Or India. But the coal will come out of the ground.
Now, one more question Mr. Spalding. What do we have in common with China and India?
We share an atmosphere. The one you guys think this stupid rule will save, at the cost of untold thousands of jobs.
