West Virginia’s Coal Country Split as New Law Pits Owners, Workers: Commodities

Article

Mike Caputo, one of the top Democrats in the West Virginia legislature, began working in the state’s coal mines at age 19. It helped put his kids through school, he said, and helped him pay for his family home.

Now Caputo, who is still involved with his union, finds himself labeled a coal killer, the target of Republicans pushing to rewrite state rules on mining safety and the environment that have been on the books for years.

The label comes as Republicans, in control of the legislature for the first time since the Great Depression, are pushing to pass a new Coal Jobs and Safety Act. They say the legislation will cut red tape and lower industry costs, while union members worry it will lower safety thresholds. While both sides have long joined together to oppose U.S. environmental rules that hurt Big Coal, the state campaign has them on different sides.

Unions “have run West Virginia for years,” said Randy Smith, the Republican who sponsored the bill in the West Virginia House. “This is the first time in 83 years Republicans have control. Anything we introduce, they’re fighting against.”

The act, which could face a final vote within a week, comes amid a state-based drive to undercut federal environmental rules being pushed by U.S. President Barack Obama to address global warming. West Virginia, along with Texas and Wyoming, has already seen efforts to target the ways local schools address global warming, emphasizing doubts on the role of humans in climate change.

Outmoded Rules

The West Virginia mine legislation is designed to update what supporters describe as outmoded rules, created after mining disasters in the 1960s and 1970s, that fail to take into account the latest mining technology.

After a 1972 incident at the Blacksville No. 1 mine that killed nine miners, for instance, a regulation was created mandating that workers vacate underground areas when some heavy equipment is moved. That rule is no longer needed because the newest equipment doesn’t require the same type of dangerous electrical connections, according to Smith, who works in the mines as a section foreman with a 10-man crew.

The message from the other side: “When safety standards are cut, miners die,” the United Mine Workers of America says on its website. “It’s that simple.”

No one disputes that the U.S. coal industry is in bad shape, with most publicly traded producers losing money. Mines in Appalachia in particular have suffered from competition from cheaper natural gas, which some power plants are now using instead of coal, and an oversupply of coal used in steelmaking.

Output Drop

In 2013, West Virginia’s coal output was 116 million tons, down 27 percent from five years earlier, according to the Energy Information Administration, a government agency. As coal mines have shut, the number of miners in the state has fallen 21 percent to 16,500 over that period, according to the West Virginia Coal Association.

It’s against this backdrop that West Virginia Republicans were able to take control of both state houses for the first time since 1932. Their campaign tied state Democrats to Obama’s environmental efforts, which include the introduction of carbon rules for power plants.

That’s left Caputo and other Democrats who managed to get re-elected in an awkward spot. While Caputo is opposed to Obama’s proposed carbon rules, he stands with the union against the regulatory changes proposed at the state level.

“There’s not a Democrat I know in this state that’s anti- coal,” he said in a telephone interview. “It’s the main piston in our economic engine.”

‘Widows and Orphans’

Still, Caputo opposes the law because, he says, “you can’t cut safety to increase production. A safe mine is a productive mine and that’s just the way it’s got to be. This industry has left too many widows and too many orphans.”

It’s those types of statement that have drawn fire from his Republican foes, and this past fall he found political ads landing in his mailbox that labeled him as someone trying to kill off the industry.

“Why would I do that?” he asks.

Bill Raney, president of the West Virginia Coal Association, has a different view. “This industry in Central Appalachia is under attack from the federal government,” Raney said. As a result, he said, the state and region have to identify things that can be done on the local level to improve the industry’s standing.

His organization, which has lobbied for years to enact many provisions in the West Virginia bill, has stated that the proposed act won’t weaken safety standards but could help strengthen its future.

The bill has passed the State Senate and is in the House of Delegates. It’s likely to be signed into law, but may be too wide-reaching to withstand the inevitable legal challenges, according to State Senator Bob Beach, a Democrat who voted against the legislation.

“Miners on the whole would like things to remain as they are,” Beach said in a telephone interview. “But the ‘War on Coal’ battle cry was heard, and I believe that is why we have the legislation we have today.”