While coalfield political leaders and industry officials spent much of the week attacking Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's remarks about the continuing decline in coal jobs, the Obama administration on Thursday announced the next round of funding in an aid package meant to help mining communities that are struggling through transitions in the nation's energy economy.
Officials from the White House, the Appalachian Regional Commission and the U.S. Commerce Department's Economic Development Administration said the $65.8 million in money is available through grants to help develop strategies for "economic growth and worker advancement" for communities that have historically relied on the coal industry for their economic stability.
The funding is part of what the administration calls its Partnerships for Opportunity and Workforce and Economic Revitalization, or POWER initiative.
Administration officials say their goal is to help communities hit hard as coal has declined because of cheap natural gas prices, plummeting global demand for steelmaking coal, competition from other mining basins and new U.S. Environmental Protection Agency rules.
"It's our sense that all Americans should be able to agree that the communities and workers in coal country that are facing economic distress and who have helped keep the lights on in this nation for generations deserve some help from the federal government," said Jason Walsh, a White House senior policy adviser who helped create the initiative. "And it's our strong belief as an administration that they are helped not by rhetoric, but by concrete investments in a better future for themselves and their businesses and their families."
Law professor James Van Nostrand, who directs the West Virginia University College of Law's Center for Energy and Sustainable Development, said this week that West Virginians are spending far too much time arguing about things beyond the state's control, such as national and global energy markets driven by the gas-drilling boom and the depletion of much of the best reserves in the state's Southern coalfields.
"Politicians who fuel the arguments that all the problems with the coal industry can be laid at the doorstep of EPA are not helpful in positioning the state for a more resilient future," said Van Nostrand, who has been studying the state's energy industry and helped put together a report on how West Virginia could comply with new federal limits on power plant greenhouse emissions. "Our political leaders could help in that transition by developing a comprehensive plan for revitalizing our coal communities and funding the necessary investments in infrastructure to facilitate economic development."
Obama officials began promoting investment in coal communities in 2015, after years of criticism from the mining industry and coalfield political leaders that - contrary to experts - various EPA rules were the major driving factor in a coal market decline that has brought thousands of layoffs and a string of bankruptcies by major producers.
The POWER initiative is a multi-agency effort to target federal resources at coal communities. It is part of a broader proposal, the POWER Plus Plan, that includes additional investments to help coal communities by addressing legacy costs of the industry and provides more funding to find ways to burn coal while capturing power plant greenhouse emissions.
Thursday's announcement involves providing grants for projects that diversify local and regional economies, create jobs in new or existing industries, attract new investment, and build the capacity for fostering long-term economic growth and opportunity in coal-impacted communities.
During a conference call with reporters Thursday morning, Walsh noted that two of the major priorities of POWER Plus - saving financially troubled United Mine Workers union pension and benefit plans and pumping more money from a federal coal-tax fund into abandoned mine cleanup across the coalfields - are now included in bipartisan bills in Congress.
Those measures include a proposal from Rep. David McKinley, R-W.Va., to preserve benefits for more than 100,000 UMW retirees and a bill co-sponsored by Rep. Evan Jenkins, R-W.Va., to release $1 billion from the Abandoned Mine Land Reclamation program for mine-site cleanup that would provide economic benefits.
McKinley has said his legislation would "ensure peace of mind for miners who have planned their whole life for these benefits."
Describing his bill, Jenkins has said, "Our small towns and families need the resources to rebuild, attract new employers, create jobs and give hope to the people who call Appalachia home."
"It has been our premise all along that we can find some common ground here," Walsh said. "We feel like we have done that, and we feel like some of the bipartisan legislation that is moving through Congress is a testament to that."
Such bipartisanship is in stark contrast to the sharp rhetoric used since Clinton's comments on the coal industry Sunday night. Republicans and coal industry supporters have seized on those comments to refocus any discussion about the region to their effort to blame coal's woes on President Barrack Obama and promote the belief that electing a Democrat as president this year would continue the Obama administration's work to destroy the industry.
During an event in Columbus, Ohio, Clinton was asked to "make the case to poor whites" in rural states for "why they should vote for you, based upon economic policies, versus voting for a Republican."
Clinton tried to use her $30 billion coalfield economic plan, which is similar to Obama's, as an example.
"We're going to make it clear that we don't want to forget those people," Clinton said. "Those people labored in those mines for generations, losing their health, often losing their lives, to turn on our lights and power our factories."
But Clinton stumbled into her answer by saying her plan was needed because, "We're going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business."
Among the first to criticize Clinton's remark was Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. The Kentucky Republican took to the Senate floor Monday to say Clinton was "boasting" of costing coal miners their jobs. Clinton's remark "underlines the need to stand up for hard-working, middle-class coal families," McConnell said.
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., followed McConnell, speaking to ask Republicans for more support in trying to get legislation passed to protect the UMW benefit plans. McConnell had personally blocked such a bill from being made part of a spending bill earlier this year.
"There is still a place for coal in our society, but everyone has to acknowledge that it is not as it was a few years ago," Reid said. "I wish the Republican leaders cared more about moving to help the pensions of these coal miners. They are desperately looking for support."
Reach Ken Ward Jr. at kward@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-1702 or follow @kenwardjr on Twitter.