Stanley Sturgill

Guest Contributor

President Trump surrounded himself with coal workers and energy industry executives when he signed his “Energy Independence” Executive Order March 28. But only one of those groups actually stands to benefit from the rollback of Obama-era climate policies. Hint: it’s not the workers. And I would know, before my retirement I was one.

“You know what this says, right?” Trump asked, grinning at the coal miners before he signed. “You’re going back to work.” But even coal industry champions like Kentucky’s Sen. Mitch McConnell and Murray Energy Corporation CEO Robert Murray have recently warned that this is an empty promise – that Trump’s policies can’t turn back the economic tide that’s washing away coal jobs.

Rather than throwing a lifeline to coal laborers, Trump’s executive order pulls the rug out from under the most rapid employment growth in the entire energy sector – clean energy jobs.

Over three million Americans currently work in wind, solar, energy efficiency, and other clean energy fields, according to the latest Department of Energy figures. All told, 41 states have more workers in clean energy jobs than in fossil fuels. Many of these states are the same that elected Trump, with a whopping 86 percent of wind farms located in districts that sent Republicans to Congress.

While Trump can’t stop this clean energy transition, his policies slow the breakneck growth of renewable energy jobs. Trump’s energy policies will hurt the very people who elected him, sapping money out of their communities and slowing long-fought employment gains

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The administration’s attack on the Clean Power Plan provides the perfect example of how these regulatory rollbacks are all pain and no gain for main street Americans. Despite the objections of the 27 states that are challenging the Clean Power Plan in court, 21 of them are already meeting their emissions reduction targets to comply with the rule, while their economies grow and employment rises.

And thanks to automation, the coal industry was well into a decades-long decline before the Clean Power Plan was ever introduced—more mining jobs were lost from 1985-2000 than in the decade-and-a-half since. So more support for coal will benefit the mine owners, but because of mechanization, it won’t likely lead to more coal jobs -- notice how the administration hasn’t touted any specific job creation estimates in praising the executive order. Today, the economic headwinds that are blowing against the coal industry – born of a global stagnation in demand as power generators switch to cheaper natural gas and renewables – are so strong that investors are fleeing and power plants are dropping offline by the hundreds.

Trump prides himself on being a good businessman, but if the free market is no longer betting on coal, why should the government? Isn’t that exactly the sort of “picking winners and losers” that Republicans accused Obama of?

Rather than sell coal miners the false promise of a dying industry, the Trump administration should focus on bringing the burgeoning clean energy industry to communities that have been ravaged by coal’s dirty life and prolonged collapse. Rather than allow oil and gas producers to poison their workers and local communities, the president should enforce methane standards and put more pipefitters to work.

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But like most of his policies, the hand-outs to coal bosses and attack on clean energy job growth shows that Trump is concerned more about executives in suits than workers in boots. Which is why we need everyone in Washington on April 29 and surround the White House at the March for Climate, Jobs and Justice so we can be certain that Trump understands that the climate is changing and that we all demand swift action on climate change.

Stanley Sturgill is a 69-year-old retired underground coal miner and federal coal mine inspector. He was born in Benham, Kentucky in Harlan County. Upon his retirement from mining in 2009, he joined Kentuckians For The Commonwealth.