Coalfield blues

There's no doubt about it. These are hard times in the southern WV coalfields. Unfortunately, while the rhetoric is white hot (accent on white, by the way), straight talk is hard to find, especially in an election year. Here's a glum assessment of the current state of political debate here from my friend Ken Ward at Coal Tattoo.

On the positive side, some state leaders want to actually do something about it. State Senate President Jeff Kessler is holding a press conference tomorrow announcing the creation of a coalfield revitalization initiative. Obviously, it's way too soon to even guess how this will go but I think it's a big step forward just to create a task force to talk about the issues.

Meanwhile, people are starting to talk about the idea of some kind of federal assistance for displaced miners. Here's a piece from Grist titled "Should the feds bail out coal miners?" My short answer to that is, yes, as in programs modeled on other efforts to help workers displaced by trade agreements.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Republican WV Congressman David McKinley introduced a bill with a Democratic co-sponsor from Vermont to do something like that. The odds of it making it through congress any time soon don't look good, but it's another step in the right direction.

Another positive step that I've mentioned before is the What's Next, WV? effort, which is going to hold deliberative forums all over the state about our economic future.

None of this, however, is a big help right away to the over 5,000 miners who have lost jobs in southern WV over the last few years due mostly to shifting market forces.

Let's talk

I've often said that one thing that West Virginia needs right away is a series of grown-up conversations (that include young people) about West Virginia's economic future. One promising step in that direction is What's Next, West Virginia?, which is gearing up to hold dozens of such conversations statewide. You can read more about that here.

THIS COULD BE INTERESTING.Fast food workers in 150 cities may be acting up for higher wages today. I wish em all the best.

ANOTHER RIPPLE FROM THE AFFORDABLE CARE ACT. This NPR item about how the Affordable Care Act is changing companies like CVS is worth a look.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

More on a bright spot

Whenever possible, I've blogged here about good things that are happening or have happened in West Virginia (there really are some). One to watch is the new effort to reform the state's juvenile justice system, which is a hot mess.

With the help of the Pew Charitable Trusts, a state task force composed of people from many sectors will study the system and look for ways to reduce incarceration and recidivism and promote community corrections. Something like this has already been done with the adult prison system via legislation passed in 2013.

WHAT'S THE WORLD COMING TO? I was pleasantly surprised to read this editorial in the conservative Charleston Daily Mail last week calling on people to recognize that coal is declining for whatever reason and that we need to start talking seriously about West Virginia's future and working to diversity the economy.

Feel the noise

If you hear anything really loud next week, it just might be WV's ruling class throwing an epic hissy fit over the Obama administration's efforts to rein in carbon emissions and address climate change/global warming.

The hissy fit has been going on with peaks and valleys pretty much since 2009, but it's probably going to hit a new level.

Yesterday, I tweeted (@elcabrero) something like this:

World history WV style: the US entered WWII after Obama and the EPA bombed Pearl Harbor.

Sadly, that really isn't that much of an exaggeration.

Over at Coal Tattoo, my friend Ken Ward wonders when if ever folks here will actually deal with it. And Paul Krugman looks at the actual costs here.

At some point, I hope people here get around to facing a few facts. Like how the market, which some people worship as a god, is doing way more to coal than regulations. Or that maybe climate change/global warming is real (how bout the weather, by the way?). Or that however much coal has been and will be part of WV's economy, we're never going back to the WWII days when mines employed over 100,000 people. And that we need to have some rational, grown up discussions about what's next.

Meanwhile, apparently the nice folks at the WVU Bureau of Business and Economic Research didn't get the hissy fit memo. They recently released a report that forecast steady economic growth for WV over the next few years.. Here's some news coverage and here's the full report.