That’s why the industry is so desperately seeking the kinds of bailouts that we saw this summer in Ohio. Coal and dirty energy interests have a staggering amount of influence over the state legislature in the Buckeye State, which passed a bill that will jack up the electricity bills for families to prop up two coal plants and two nuclear plants - plants selling electricity that’s so expensive no one wants to buy it. So this new legislation will force Ohio families and businesses to buy that coal power at a premium. It also allows obsolete coal plants to take up space in the market that could have been filled by clean energy, putting Ohio at risk of watching the clean energy economy pass it by, while neighboring states reap the benefits.

Who benefits from the Ohio bailout bill? To no one’s surprise I’m sure, it’s the wealthy executives behind FirstEnergy Solutions. The company is the bankrupt affiliate of FirstEnergy Corp - the parent company that has been putting forward every effort to rid itself of FirstEnergy Solutions - and includes a portfolio of uneconomic dirty generation that can only compete against clean energy by using bailouts as a business model.

It’s a story as old as the hills of West Virginia where I live, one we see repeated in the recent string of mining company bankruptcies, as executives line their pockets on the way out the door and leave regular families and communities to foot the bill. In Harlan County, Kentucky, coal miners are in their fifth week of blocking the railroad tracks to stop a trainload of coal that they mined from leaving the mountains, after mining company Blackjewel declared bankruptcy and their final paychecks bounced. As Sierra Club attorney Peter Morgan put it, “This Revelation/Blackjewel filing is the beginning of phase two of the coal bankruptcy cycle, and it’s going to be devastating.” That’s because after years of spinning off companies and cycling through bankruptcies as executives pocketed the profits, the industry is reaching a point where there are no more buyers.

The reality is clear - the days when coal had a lock on our electric sector are over, and clean energy’s momentum keeps growing. Seven states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico have passed 100 percent clean energy standards, and major utilities like Consumers and NIPSCO are phasing out their coal or even going 100 percent carbon free. That’s why we need a transition to clean energy that supports workers and communities – rather than the empty promises currently coming from Washington and our statehouses in coal mining states.

The April renewable milestone and all those clean energy commitments didn’t just happen because of market forces. They happened because of a focused, determined grassroots movement that isn’t slowing down. And with federal and state leadership and resources, we can also move this nation off of coal and fracked gas without leaving anyone behind. We don’t have to settle for bankruptcies, bailouts, and broken promises.

Here are three lessons I’ve learned over the past decade of working in the Beyond Coal movement - we can do more than anyone thinks possible, it won’t be easy, and we need a clean energy transition that supports workers and communities. As the climate crisis barrels down on us, as the inevitable setbacks occur, take a step back and take heart from all the progress we’ve made together. Stop again and think about that milestone, about the fact that in less than a decade, grassroots determination knocked King Coal off its throne and handed the crown to renewable energy. I can’t wait to see what the next decade - a pivotal decade for the fate of our planet - has in store.