This story is part of a Grist package that explores how President Trump’s first 100 days reshapes US climate and environmental policies.
Jeffrey Willig will no longer mine coal. For nine years he worked underground, but most recently he worked for a company called Blackjewel. Deprived of their final salary, Willig and others set up camps and began what would be months of protest, blocking the last train in “Black Gold” to leave Harlan County, Kentucky. They asked Democrats and Republicans for support as well, and received some, but eventually remained disillusioned and fought for years for what they owed.
Their light-like form came amidst the wave of layoffs that have been rocking the coal nation for over a decade. It frustrated him when I heard Willig discuss my closure and praise the growth of Clean Energy work. “Tell them they want to do solar panels. That’s great,” Willig said. “But why not? [they] Would you like to put that kind of work in our area? They don’t do that. That’s the problem. ”
Democrat leaders and renewable energy advocates didn’t always realize how good work mining is. Willig made $75,000 a year without a college degree, and didn’t even make a third of his annual income per person. Plus, it was fulfilling – hardworking and dangerous, but it took pride in helping to fuel the world with unparalleled friendship. When those jobs were gone, he felt Democrats didn’t provide a clear answer as to what would happen.
“They didn’t replace those jobs,” Willig said. “I am a good person, I loved their family and everything, they lost their home.” One friend couldn’t see how to take his life and offer his family.
Harlan County still has many active mines, but like all of the coal countries, Layoff And bankruptcy will cut jobs by more than half since 2012. The reasons are complicated, but for the first 100 days of his inauguration, President Trump promised to “unleash America’s energy” and “restore energy control.”
Last month, the president appeared with more than 20 men wearing reflective stripes and hard hats, and signed an executive order titled revitalizing America’s beautiful clean coal industry. “We’re bringing back an abandoned industry,” Trump said. “Today, along with us, are some of the incredible workers who benefit from these policies.”
If all this sounds familiar, that’s because the president’s 2016 run created the star of the Appalachian coalfield. He regularly appeared there, pledging to end the “war on coal” by resuming closed plants and revitalizing the industry. Campaigns ahead of the vortex of exploring the souls of the people who positioned this region; Many have been discussed too widely.“Trump Country” featured rallies in West Virginia and Pennsylvania. There, they met with signs that the candidates would declare “Trump Coal,” wearing hard hats and dig out coals they once dug up.
“You’re the real people” and Trump I said In one event. “You have created this country.”
Andrew Thomas / Middle Eastern Image AFP / Getty Images
Then, as it is now, the president followed the example set by politicians before him, said Lou Martin, a labor historian at Chatham University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Candidates on both sides of the aisle pose as part of their campaign in Appalachia, from FDR and Carter to Nixon and Trump. There, despite its dangers, mining coal provided middle-class living for generations of families.
“Coal miners have always been seen as the epitome of hard work, being noble, honest and hardworking,” Martin said. Appalachia is a countryside poverty and its “subject to climax”A recognizable world of suffering“For some voters, “Appalachia is considered white in the imagination of its people,” he said.
At the same time, Martin said that eastern coalfields are often stereotyped as both a step back on modernity and left behind by progress. “When someone is paying tribute to the miner, it’s like saying, ‘I look at you, I care about you.’ ”
The Trump Order, signed on April 8, declares coal “critical minerals.” This is a designation that requires many federal agencies, including the Energy, Treasury and the Home Office, and takes steps to support the industry and eliminate regulations that hinder domestic production. Many of the people gathered around Trump praised the move. Protection from black lung disease.
But when it comes to the ceremony, representatives of the working class miners’ campaign were respected, said Erin Bates, the United Miners’ communications director in America. “One of them was not union miners, most of them were managers,” she said.
Bates hopes that the mines remain open and miners continue to work, but he doubts that the Trump administration can overcome the trend of promoting sector downfall. industry Experts predicted in 2017 The market is so powerful that its return is unlikely, and so far it is right. The number of people working in the country’s coal mines has steadily declined from around 89,000 in 2012 to around 41,300 today. Production volume fell by 31% During Trump’s first term, and continued his slides.
“He’s not talking about coal miners as much as he did in 2016,” Bates said of the president. “And I think it’s because he couldn’t follow a lot of things.”
The reason is simple. Demand has slowed as renewable energy, to a greater degree natural gas has become a more expensive proposal, even if coal is the cost of maintaining the power plants that used it. Such facilities provide 88% of West Virginia’s electricity, and the longer they run, the more energy a lot of West Virginia’s public broadcasting residents will pay. It has been reported. It has fee payers against fossil fuels.
Appalachian utilities such as electricity continue to raise fees to accommodate repair costs. Like Tennessee Valley authorities, others have abolished aging and expensive coal-fired plants and turned them into natural gas. Coal-powered power generation It has steadily declined During the first Trump administration, and continue with apace. recently Report The Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis argued that it would be rare for idle coal plants to reboot cheaply given the cost of advanced maintenance and the reduced viability of coal power.
Given the domestic decline in consumption, many US producers rely on export Countries like China – 14% of the country’s coal went abroad in 2022, but the trade war caused by Trump’s tariffs is threatening its lifelines.
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Trump still enjoys widespread support across the eastern coalfields. “I think he meant every word. He wanted the country to be more energy efficient. The people I worked for had high hopes,” Willig said, adding that he felt that four years were not enough to enact real change.
Kathy Davis Estep, a retired teacher and daughter of a coal miner living in Harlan County, hopes Trump will stimulate the industry. However, please note that she is targeting at least 33 Mining Safety and Health Administration offices, including locations in Harlan County, due to the closure. This will come later Long-standing staff reduction And budget cuts to agents have already narrowed down much of its strength. Miners and their advocates fear that the closure will reduce the number of agencies that improve safety over the past 50 years or so. lithium Other metals.
Vonda Robinson is Vice President of the Black Lung Association and feels he understands what miners need. Her husband dug coal until he contracted the disease caused by chronic exposure to silica dust in his 40s. Currently 58, he is waiting for a double lung transplant. Many others await diagnosis and treatment, Trump administration’s policies hampered them. “We’re going to eat coal, we’re going to dig baby digs, but what’s confusing me is that there’s nothing about safety,” she said. “If we don’t take care of coal miners, there’s no coal industry.”
Miner’s health programs are closed and have immediate impact, said Scott Rainey, an epidemiologist at the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, or Niosch. His staff was on leave last month and is expected to be fired in June. His research lays the foundation for federal silica regulations and limits exposure to toxic dust. The rules were adopted last year, but are pending Legal challenges National Association of Sand, Gravel, Stone, and Niosch Cuts The execution was held regardless.
Laney’s study also supported the health monitoring program for coal workers. “We are currently unable to accept x-rays from the clinic due to these miners. We are unable to go out to the scene,” he said. The program also cannot provide essential documents to enable workers diagnosed with illness to move into roles with less exposure to silica, as required by law.
“With the potential to increase coal production in the US, we are in the midst of the worst Blacklang outbreak we’ve seen in the last 50 years, closing our health and safety programs to protect these miners who may be entering the industry for the first time,” Rainey said. “The protection given to their father and father’s father is not given to them.”
Despite Trump’s promise to stimulate an industry facing an inevitable decline, its future remains uncertain. But Willig is not a part of it. He has long departed the coalfields for manufacturing in Louisville, Kentucky. But he promises to restore the fate of people like him who enjoyed middle-class lives who worked underground, with a combination of frustration and hope.
