Obama seeks $55M in aid for coal country

WASHINGTON – In a surprise move, President Barack Obama on Monday proposed a budget that includes $55 million in federal assistance to hard-hit coal communities in Kentucky and other parts of Appalachia.

Obama's plan uses existing federal programs and some new ones to promote job creation and training and more diversified local economies in areas where workers have lost jobs at coal mines and coal-fired power plants, according to a White House document explaining the initiative.

The budget also would direct $1 billion over five years to the cleanup and reuse of abandoned coal mines, most of which are in the Appalachian region. Top candidates for the money would be communities with high numbers of jobless miners and significant coal-related water pollution that is inhibiting economic redevelopment.

The administration has been under fire from coal-state lawmakers in both parties — including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. — for environmental and other regulatory policies that they see as a "war on coal." Kentucky is the nation's third-largest coal producer.

The initiative is not in response to that criticism, said a White House official who asked not to be identified.

"There is always political rhetoric out there — this is a proposal based on an assessment of policy and investment needs that are out there in the country," the official said.

While McConnell dismissed Obama's overall budget as "another top-down, backward-looking document" that caters to liberals and doesn't balance, the Kentuckian signaled that he might be receptive to helping states in coal country.

"It is cold comfort for the Obama administration to suddenly propose easing the pain they've helped inflict on so many Kentucky coal families, but anything aimed at aiding these communities should be seriously considered," he said in a statement.

Rep. Hal Rogers, R-5th District, and chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, said Obama has pushed a "job-killing regulatory agenda since the day he took office."

"While I am pleased that his administration has suddenly taken an interest in these communities, one year of action cannot be substituted for years of inaction in which we saw mine after mine shuttered and more than 8,000 hard-working men and women lose their jobs," Rogers said in a statement.

Even so, he said his panel "will certainly bear in mind the dire needs of these hard-hit communities" when writing the spending bills.

Steve Sanders, director of the Appalachian Citizens' Law Center in Whitesburg, Ky., praised Obama's plan to spend $1 billion to rid Appalachia of abandoned mines.

"Reinvesting funds into Central Appalachia could simultaneously address the legacy costs of coal extraction and provide new, needed job opportunities," Sanders said.

Obama's political standing in the Appalachian region is low, and some observers said that figured into McConnell's re-election victory last fall and other Republican wins in coal states, where the "war on coal" theme was a constant presence in GOP messaging.

Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear, a Democrat, said the Obama plan meshes with a bipartisan state initiative called Shaping Our Appalachian Region.

"I'm optimistic about the proposal's targeted programming funds for displaced coal workers, which is critically important as so many have lost jobs in the coalfields," Beshear said in a statement. "The emphasis on work force training and job creation is especially welcome."

He cautioned Congress to give the plan an unbiased look. "For an issue as important as Appalachian development and support, party-line antics do nothing but delay or even eliminate needed investments," Beshear said.

The administration's proposal said it recognizes that with the nation "undergoing a rapid energy transformation" that is producing more efficiency and cleaner air, the trends "are impacting workers and communities who have relied on the coal industry as a source of good jobs and economic prosperity, particularly in Appalachia, where competition with other coal basins provides additional pressure."

The plan would earmark $20 million to help workers who have lost their jobs at coal mines and closed coal-fired power plants, as well as provide $25 million to the Appalachian Regional Commission to distribute among the hardest-hit coal communities.

The administration also wants to offer $2 billion in new tax benefits to continue development of cleaner coal and carbon capture technologies, among other things.

In a step aimed at strengthening the health and benefits programs for some 100,000 coal miners and their families, the budget plan would transfer about $3.9 billion over the next decade into programs run by the United Mine Workers of America. The union's programs, set up under a 1946 agreement with the government, are facing severe financial shortages because of the industry's downturn and companies ending contributions to them.

"Keeping America's promise to these workers has long been a bipartisan effort, and this action serves to reinforce that," UMWA International President Cecil Roberts said.

Outside the aid to coal communities, McConnell made clear he is not planning to give Obama much room on energy and environmental issues.

The senator on Monday said he would serve on the Senate Appropriations Committee's interior, environment and related agencies subcommittee, a spot from which he would try to stymie White House environmental initiatives he views as detrimental to the coal industry. The subcommittee oversees the budget of the federal Environmental Protection Agency.

"This administration continues its war against Kentucky coal jobs, our miners and their families and I have vowed to do all I can do stop them," McConnell said.

Other budget proposals of interest to Kentucky included:

•Hiking the federal tax on tobacco from the current $1.01 per pack to $1.95 per pack. That could affect Kentucky tobacco growers, who produce the second-largest amount of the crop behind North Carolina. The president made an identical proposal in last year's budget, but lawmakers did not embrace it.

•Increasing spending by $19 million for the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration to enforce safety in mines, from $375.9 million to $394.9 million.

•Spending $24.9 million to support the operations of Louisville's American Printing House for the Blind, which makes educational materials for the blind and visually impaired.

•Cutting spending on cleanup of the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant site by $36.4 million, to $247.2 million for fiscal 2016.

Reporter James R. Carroll can be reached at (703) 854-8945. Follow him on Twitter @JRCarrollCJ .