Coal jobs are not coming back, no matter what Trump says, and Republicans are starting to admit it

By Mark Sumner
Monday Nov 14, 2016 · 1:48 PM EST

Here’s the thing about coal: you can’t eat it. Or wear it. Other than a small market for “things really awful parents shove into the stockings of children,” coal gets burned. In the United States, almost all of it gets burned to make electricity. Which makes all the talk about Trump bringing back coal jobs worse than ridiculous.

In May, President-elect Donald Trump stood on the stage at the Charleston Civic Center in West Virginia, put on a miners helmet and pretended to shovel coal.

“If I win we’re going to bring those miners back,” Trump said at the rally. “…These ridiculous rules and regulations that make it impossible for you to compete … we’re going to take that all off the table, folks.”

With Trump’s election and Republicans controlling both chambers of Congress, many in Kentucky are now waiting to cash in on the Republican promise of more coal jobs.
Yeah, boy. Trump digs coal. So we take away the Clean Water Act and allow mines to dump unlimited waste, and take away the Clean Air Act and allow power plants to spread unlimited ash and acid rain, and do in MSHA inspections so that miners lives are even more at risk. And what does that bring?

U.S. Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, though, wasn’t making any promises Friday.
Nothing. That’s what it brings.

About 33 percent of all the electric power in the United States comes from burning coal. Which sounds like a lot, and it is. But here’s the thing—less than a decade ago, it was 50 percent. What happened in the interval wasn’t Obama starting up a war on coal. It was fracking for natural gas.

And coal jobs? They are well and truly fracked. Forever.

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http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/11/14/1598994/-Coal-jobs-are-not-coming-back-no-matter-what-Trump-says-and-Republicans-are-starting-to-admit-it