As his environmental regulations wipe out jobs in the coal industry and potentially drive up the price of electricity, President Obama on Thursday doled out more than $14 million to towns in Kentucky, West Virginia, Tennessee and other areas in the hopes of moving displaced coal workers into other lines of work.
The initiative — known as the Partnerships for Opportunity and Workforce and Economic Revitalization — comes as the president, who vowed to make climate change a centerpiece of his second term, moves ahead with a host of environmental regulations explicitly designed to lessen U.S. use of fossil fuels in favor of renewable sources such as wind and solar power.
The key piece of Mr. Obama’s regulatory agenda is the so-called Clean Power Plan, which establishes the first federal limits on carbon emissions from power plants. Coal-fired plants emit more carbon than other facilities, making them the prime target of the Environmental Protection Agency rules.
The EPA has conceded that coal’s share of American electricity generation will drop by about one-quarter — from about 40 percent to 30 percent — after the plan is fully implemented.
The administration, along with its supporters in the environmental movement, also admits that the move to clean fuels will be an especially difficult one for traditional coal regions, including Appalachia. The coal sector, for example, lost more than 50,000 jobs from 2008 to 2012, according to research from the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University, and the trend has accelerated since.
The White House says federal spending will be needed to create new jobs in other industries in those areas as coal careers disappear.
The goal of the administration’s initiative is “effectively aligning, leveraging and targeting a range of federal economic and workforce development programs and resources to assist communities negatively impacted by changes in the coal industry and power sector,” the White House said in a fact sheet announcing the spending.
The money is being given to specific agencies at the state and local levels. Kentucky’s Cabinet for Finance and Administration, for example, will get $1 million to help construct broadband infrastructure in eastern Kentucky.
The Chicago Transit Authority will get $200,000 to “provide employment and training opportunities for bus diesel mechanics and technicians.”
Agencies in West Virginia, Virginia, New Mexico, Tennessee, Colorado and other states also will get a piece of the more than $14 million.
Thursday’s announcement notwithstanding, critics say the administration’s climate agenda ultimately will do serious harm to coal-reliant regions and elsewhere across the country. Along with more potential job losses, electricity rates are likely to rise as a result of the Clean Power Plan, data from the federal Energy Information Administration show.
“The American people deserve to know why their wallets will be raided to achieve this administration’s politicized energy policies,” Robert Duncan, president of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, said last week.
“What this administration fails to communicate is when people on low and fixed incomes are faced with higher electricity bills, they too often must forgo other necessities like food and medication. When that occurs, people’s health and well-being are put at risk, and that’s not an outcome anyone should support.”
• Ben Wolfgang can be reached at bwolfgang@washingtontimes.com.
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