East Tenn. coal mining counties hope to gain share of federal aid
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Claiborne County could use some money for a new hotel and an industrial park. Campbell County is looking to expand broadband internet service into isolated and sparsely populated areas.
The two East Tennessee counties are hoping to tap into a reservoir of federal funding President Barack Obama’s administration is making available to help communities struggling with the loss of coal jobs diversify their economies, retrain workers and attract new investment.
“It has been devastating,” Claiborne County Mayor Jack Daniels said of the impact the coal industry’s declining fortunes have had on the rural county and its residents.
In neighboring Campbell County, the loss of coal jobs and the lack of employment opportunities for outof-work miners have been a heavy burden, County Commissioner Sue Nance said.
“There’s not employment for them once those (coal) jobs go away,” she said. “Many of the coal mining employees were great at the jobs they did, but didn’t have job training in other areas. It’s just unfortunate they weren’t taken care of later.”
To help coal communities and out-of-work miners get back on their feet, the Obama administration announced last month it is releasing $65.8 million to assist their transition to new economic opportunities.
The money comes from the administration’s POWER Initiative, or Partnerships for Opportunity and Workforce and Economic Revitalization. The program works to invest federal economic and workforce development resources in communities and regions negatively impacted by changes in the coal economy.
In Congress, there’s also a push to provide financial assistance to struggling coal communities.
A bipartisan bill filed by U.S. Rep. Hal Rogers, R-Ky., would speed up the release of $1 billion in available funding through an abandoned mine reclamation fund to assist communities that have relied on the coal industry for employment or have recently experienced significant coal job losses.
Under the plan, $200 million would be distributed to participating states annually for five years to not only help communities reclaim abandoned mines, but also to identify and fund economic development projects on those sites.
Tennessee would receive a little more than $11 million under the program, said U.S. Rep. John J. Duncan Jr., a Knoxville Republican who is one of the bill’s cosponsors.
“This funding can be used to clean up abandoned mines that do the most harm to the environment, and it will also create opportunities for economic development in the areas that have some of the highest unemployment rates in the state,” Duncan said.
Environmentalists like the proposal because cleaning up abandoned mine sites not only will protect the health of the planet, “we’re going to turn them into sites for businesses that have long-term economic benefits for our communities,” said Bonnie Swinford, an organizer for the Tennessee chapter of the Sierra Club.