Coalmining is a really insignificant part of the US work force and economy today already.
It's big only in Trump's and his voters imagination because he keeps playing them up and promising to bring their jobs back - but like everything else he promises that's never going to happen of course.
Industry experts and even some of it's leaders all agree that coalmining is a dying industry.
And that's not because of evil left wing regulations - it's because of right wing capitalist economics.
Mining coal for energy production is simply not economically profitable any more, compared to newer technologies.
Those jobs are never coming back simply because no one is going to invest money in an industry with as low profit margin as the coal industry.
The Trump administration, caught up in it's own lies about how they where going to bring coal jobs back, are now pushing completely misleading statistics to try to support their claim about how coal mining is having a resurgence under Trump - but it's just all lies as usual.
They also played up the first new opening of a coal mine under Trump's presidency as if he had anything to do with it, when in fact the decision to open the mine was taken before the election.
The mine in question will mine coal intended for steel production - a very small subset of the entire coal industry and one that won't mean anything for the general decline in coal mining that's mostly producing lower grade coal for energy production. And it will only ever employ 100 people.
The sensible thing to do would be to invest in these communities to support the miners and the other people who live there, help them attract other employers and offer the unemployed re-education for other work.
But Trump and the Republicans won't do that - because that costs money they want to use for tax cuts for themselves instead.
But slashing environmental and worker safety regulations won't cost the federal government anything, but will save the mining companies some money.
They'll probably still not expand coal mining as it still won't improve the profit margin that much - but it'll enrich the owners of the mines already in existence and probably stave of the industry for closing completely for some time.
At the cost of destroying the local environments of these communities and endangering the lives of the workers in the mines.
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@SeanR @Rogers
Coalmining is a really insignificant part of the US work force and economy today already.
It's big only in Trump's and his voters imagination because he keeps playing them up and promising to bring their jobs back - but like everything else he promises that's never going to happen of course.
Industry experts and even some of it's leaders all agree that coalmining is a dying industry.
And that's not because of evil left wing regulations - it's because of right wing capitalist economics.
Mining coal for energy production is simply not economically profitable any more, compared to newer technologies.
Those jobs are never coming back simply because no one is going to invest money in an industry with as low profit margin as the coal industry.
The Trump administration, caught up in it's own lies about how they where going to bring coal jobs back, are now pushing completely misleading statistics to try to support their claim about how coal mining is having a resurgence under Trump - but it's just all lies as usual.
They also played up the first new opening of a coal mine under Trump's presidency as if he had anything to do with it, when in fact the decision to open the mine was taken before the election.
The mine in question will mine coal intended for steel production - a very small subset of the entire coal industry and one that won't mean anything for the general decline in coal mining that's mostly producing lower grade coal for energy production. And it will only ever employ 100 people.
But you won't hear any of those facts when Fox News reports about it like it's all a gift from Trump that signals great things to come for the coal miners:
http://insider.foxnews.com/2017/06/10/new-coal-mine-donald-trump-pennsylvania-fossil-fuels-regulations
The sensible thing to do would be to invest in these communities to support the miners and the other people who live there, help them attract other employers and offer the unemployed re-education for other work.
But Trump and the Republicans won't do that - because that costs money they want to use for tax cuts for themselves instead.
But slashing environmental and worker safety regulations won't cost the federal government anything, but will save the mining companies some money.
They'll probably still not expand coal mining as it still won't improve the profit margin that much - but it'll enrich the owners of the mines already in existence and probably stave of the industry for closing completely for some time.
At the cost of destroying the local environments of these communities and endangering the lives of the workers in the mines.
Other sources:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/03/31/8-surprisingly-small-industries-that-employ-more-people-than-coal/?utm_term=.278ee70fb6ff
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/06/pruitt-epa-coal-jobs-exaggerate/529311/
http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-updates-everything-president-1497309388-htmlstory.html