Miners’ union backs shift from coal in swap for jobs
WASHINGTON — The nation’s largest coal miners’ union said this week that it would accept President Joe Biden’s plan to move away from coal and other fossil fuels in exchange for a “true energy transition” that includes thousands of jobs in renewable energy and spending on technology to make coal cleaner.
Cecil Roberts, president of the United Mine Workers of America, said ensuring jobs for displaced miners — including 7,000 coal workers who lost their jobs last year — is crucial to any infrastructure bill.
“I think we need to provide a future for those people, a future for anybody that loses their job because of a transition in this country, regardless if it’s coal, oil, gas or any other industry for that matter,” Roberts said Monday in an online speech to the National Press Club.
“We talk about a ‘just transition’ all the time,” Roberts added. “I wish people would quit using that. There’s never been a just transition in the history of the United States.”
Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W. Va., appearing with Roberts at the event, said measures to help coal miners in West Virginia and other rural states must be part of the $2.3 trillion infrastructure package taking shape in Congress.
“Basically what is needed ... is the human infrastructure,” Manchin said. “You can’t leave anybody behind,” especially those in his hard-hit state, which has lost thousands of jobs in mining and other resource extraction industries jobs in recent years.
“I can tell you how West Virginia feels. We feel like returning Vietnam veterans,” Manchin said. “We’ve done every dirty job you’ve asked us to do. We never questioned. We did it and performed well. And now all of a sudden we’re not good enough, we’re not clean enough, we’re not green enough, and we’re not smart enough. You want to know why they quit voting for Democrats, that’s the reason.”
A plan put forward by the mine workers’ union calls for significant expansion of tax incentives for renewable energy and preference in hiring for dislocated miners; full funding for programs to plug old oil and gas wells and clean up abandoned mines; and continued incentives to develop carbon capture and storage technology that traps carbon dioxide produced by burning fossil fuels and stores it underground.
The union proposal, and Manchin’s endorsement, comes as Congress is considering Biden’s infrastructure package to rebuild the nation’s roads, bridges and power grid, promote electric cars and boost clean energy such as solar and wind power.
In his remarks Monday, Manchin made it clear he wants to preserve the coal industry, despite continued declines nationwide amid steep competition from other energy sources.
“I’m for innovation, not elimination” of coal, Manchin said, adding that even if coal was reduced to zero in the United States, thousands of carbon-polluting coal mines would still operate in China and other countries.