The New Tragedy of Coal Country.

[Cattledog]

The Trump administration has successfully convinced West Virginians that they'll never have to give up on coal.

BY EMILY ATKIN

Around two dozen coal miners sat at fold-out tables outside the West Virginia capitol building on Tuesday, eating barbecue. Dressed in full work gear, including hardhats, they sweated under an unseasonably warm sun as they devoured pulled pork, cabbage, and red-skinned potatoes. The feast was prepared for them by Rupie Phillips, a Democrat-turned-independent state delegate running as a Republican for Congress. As he shook the miners’ hands, he passed out stickers containing the same phrase emblazoned on his black baseball cap: “I survived the war on coal.”

He and everyone else at this party seemed to believe it.

“I think we ought to forever celebrate today,” Chris Hamilton, senior vice president of the West Virginia Coal Association, told the crowd, which also included the state attorney general and lieutenant governor. “Today signifies officially the end of the war on coal. I think we should always celebrate November 28.”

Tuesday was the day the Environmental Protection Agency came to West Virginia. The agency’s industry-friendly administrator, Scott Pruitt, had agreed to hold exactly one public hearing on his plan to repeal the Clean Power Plan—President Barack Obama’s signature climate change regulation—and he wanted to do it in coal country. Earlier that morning, coal executives, lobbyists, and top state Republicans told EPA officials that the CPP would destroy the coal industry—and that repealing it would bring coal jobs back. “We have always known coal has been the backbone of the economy of the state. And it always will be,” Tim Armstead, the speaker of the West Virginia House of Delegates, told the coal miners. “Those who say it will not simply are not grasping reality.”

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[Aristus]

1. Nothing says 'winning' like collapsing and dying of black lung while standing in the

unemployment line...

[JI7]

2. What's the tragedy ?