As Kentucky's once-powerful coal industry buckles, its political prominence takes a tumble

GREENVILLE, Ky. — On a chilly February day in 2019, nearly 200 residents, some wearing miners' helmets and holding handwritten signs reading “Save Unit 3,” gathered in a Muhlenberg County park dotted with historic buildings from coal's heyday.

Then-Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin took the microphone, urging the Tennessee Valley Authority to vote against shutting down the last coal-fired unit of the iconic Paradise fossil plant.

Peabody Coal fed the plant, the largest of its kind in the world when it opened in 1963, and made the county a top producer. The subject of John Prine’s song “Paradise,” the mines brought middle-class wages and glad-handing politicians seeking industry and union support.

Hopes were high for President Donald Trump, who had campaigned on a promise to revive the industry, to sway the TVA. He tweeted his support, and Kentucky’s powerful Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell also pushed to keep the plant open.

But just days later, the TVA opted to close the coal-fired unit anyway.

“You’ve elected a person occupying the most powerful office on earth. So you think they can get it done,” said Jon Rogers, whose family coal company also fed the plant.

But, Rogers conceded, "There’s a limit to their power.”

The closure was a stark example of Trump’s inability to meet the promises he made to voters to reverse coal’s decline. Since then, a cascade of bankruptcies, coal plant closures and mine layoffs across the U.S. further diminished coal’s political clout.

Coal has shifted to the back-burner in the 2020 election — a far fall from the powerful role it played in influencing and financing past campaigns in major coal-producing states.

Hopes for the comeback that many politicians said they could help coal achieve are fading fast. And those politicians are talking much less about the "war on coal" that helped push them to past victories — if they discuss coal at all.

“Even President Trump now, he doesn’t talk about coal,” Rogers said. “You just don’t hear it.”

Politicians who need to win votes in coal country, including McConnell and his opponent in the Nov. 3 election, Democrat Amy McGrath, still pay lip service to the historically important resource. But it doesn’t dominate their stump speeches the way it once did.

Industry campaign donations spiked during the Obama administration with the creation of super PACs that funded campaign ads hammering home their message that Democrats were waging a so-called “war on coal.”

Now, contributions to federal candidates and PACs from the coal industry have suddenly plummeted — along with funding of state legislative races in Kentucky — as some of the top-spending companies reel from an industry seemingly in freefall.

The 'war' is over, but coal declines continue

While some candidates still invoke miners as a tried-and-true symbol of blue-collar America, the years-long criticism of the “war on coal,” which Trump, McConnell and others used to win votes, has quieted down.

McConnell declared victory in a February column: “Together, President Trump and I have ended Obama’s regulatory war on coal. Now we’re doing all we can to repair the damage.”

In the midst of McConnell’s last reelection bid, during the second quarter of 2014, Kentucky’s coal mine employment totaled 11,510 workers, recent state government data shows.

By the second quarter of 2016, when Trump was trying to win the White House, that figure had dropped to 6,517 workers. And in the second quarter of 2020, when McConnell and Trump both held two of the most powerful positions in the U.S. government, Kentucky was down to 3,760 coal mine workers. Recent declines were also driven by the pandemic.

Concerning McConnell’s contention that he helped stop Obama’s “war on coal,” McGrath told The Courier Journal: “And he just lost 67% of coal jobs in Kentucky over the last six years. Is that winning, really? You know that was made up.

“The problem is he continually lied to people for decades telling them, ‘Oh, just vote for me, and I’m going to bring your coal jobs back.’ Well look around,” she said. “They’re not back.”

McConnell, Trump and others’ rhetoric that Obama’s “war on coal” was killing the industry was faulty, said Mark Thurber, associate director of Stanford University’s Program on Energy and Sustainable Development.

“Objectively, it was never accurate,” he said.

Environmental regulations Obama instituted, and that Trump rolled back, were part of the challenges coal faced, Thurber said, but the major obstacle was economic competition from cheap natural gas.

“There is nothing that Trump and McConnell ever could have done to save coal short of … Soviet-style economics and governance,” said Thurber, who published a book on the coal industry last year. "And probably even that wouldn't have worked."

Few expect coal’s downward spiral to translate into significant declines in support for Trump or McConnell’s 2020 reelection bids, though.

As hopes of reviving the industry evaporate, Western Kentucky University political science professor Scott Lasley suggested the message candidates want to send now to people in coal country is: You’re not forgotten.

“If they still feel that Sen. McConnell and President Trump are still fighting for them and people in that region, they’ll be supportive,” Lasley said.

Read more: Coal industry's political influence wanes, with exception of Joe Craft

'They just want somebody to be honest'

In the tiny, red-brick historic downtown of Hazard, Kentucky, one building sports a Trump 2020 sign. Yard signs for McGrath could be seen dotting one neighborhood.

But far fewer people are debating coal this year, said Terry Thies, the former head of Perry County’s Democratic Women’s Club.

“That’s a big change from years past,” she said. “Coal has always had a big influence in politics, until now.”

When McConnell was up for reelection in 2014, coal was a dominant issue in his race against Democrat and former Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes.

McConnell made coal — and his opposition to Obama’s “war” on it — a central theme of his campaign, and even Grimes slammed the Democratic president’s fossil-fuel policies.

Six years later, the COVID-19 pandemic has dominated McConnell’s latest reelection race, though McConnell and McGrath have each made mentions of coal in campaign ads and were quizzed about it during their debate on Monday.

McGrath said voters in Eastern and Western Kentucky still bring up coal when they meet her.

“What I hear from miners and their families is they know that coal is not going away anytime soon. We still need it … but it will not be what it once was,” she told The Courier Journal. “And they just want somebody to be honest about that and have a plan for the future.”

McGrath claims McConnell hasn’t done enough to help coal communities.

She points to the Senate’s failure, under McConnell’s leadership, to pass the RECLAIM Act, which would free up about $1 billion for cleaning up polluted former mine lands and preparing them for development.

McGrath also says bankruptcy laws must be changed to ensure miners are compensated when a coal company goes bankrupt.

But McConnell and his 2020 campaign maintain he has accomplished a lot, in the face of significant challenges, to help the Kentucky families who depend on this struggling industry.

“Mitch McConnell is Kentucky’s coal champion, and nobody has worked harder or done more in the Senate to protect coal communities than he has,” Team Mitch spokeswoman Kate Cooksey said.

The senator has cited many examples of how he has worked to support coal companies and miners, including:

• Securing legislation in December 2019 that prevented a major pension plan for miners from running empty;

• Negotiating a deal in 2017 that arranged for the permanent extension of health insurance benefits for retired miners and their dependents;

• Ensuring the Senate scrapped the Obama-era “stream protection rule” that required stricter standards for mining-related water contamination and for restoring streams negatively impacted by such operations, which opponents said would put coal jobs at risk.

While McConnell hasn’t totally dropped the “war on coal” talking point, warnings about restarting that “war” may not pack as much of a punch as it did when Obama was still in office, University of Kentucky political scientist Steve Voss pointed out.

“Selling a war on coal was easier. Now those in charge can dangle threats of what might happen (if former Vice President Joe Biden is elected), but it’s less compelling,” he said.

Another reason coal has been less of a big deal during the 2020 election season may be because Biden doesn’t mention coal much, according to Murray State University political science professor James Clinger.

“There’s not an incumbent government or a rival presidential candidate who is attacking coal right now,” Clinger said. “So, it’s a less salient issue in that respect.”

'It was a huge block of votes'

Steering a pickup through Muhlenberg County’s rolling hills in Western Kentucky, Jon Rogers headed toward the towering smokestacks on the Green River that could be seen for miles.

At the Paradise plant, which burned its last load of coal in February, a truck sat loaded with equipment to haul out.

“That’s all the coal that’s left,” he said, pointing to some left-behind piles.

Rogers and his relatives, who own the Rogers Brothers Coal Co., long helped feed the plant, including leasing mining lands to Peabody and other operators. Rogers sold a smaller mining company in 2008 and now works as the land manager for the company.

In 2017, the TVA opened a smaller gas-fueled plant nearby, employing a small fraction of the coal plant’s workers. By 2019, the agency was arguing that the coal plant was outmoded, inefficient, facing maintenance issues and that its retirement would save ratepayers millions — and it decided to close the coal unit.

The consequences for the county were swift. A mine called Genesis operated by Murray Energy soon folded, putting more than 200 out of work. Murray itself later declared bankruptcy. By June, there were 250 people still working the county’s last mine, down from about 3,500 in the 1980s.

The fallout also extended to supporting industries such as truckers, ironworkers, pipefitters, and plumbers. “It was a big blow to our community,” said Judge-Executive Curtis McGehee.

The county slashed budgets and is scrambling to attract new industry to reclaimed surface mines. But it’s battling a population that’s too small for some large employers and also lacks education and training. Just 11% of residents have bachelor’s degrees.

McGehee said he realizes it was seen as a business decision but feels TVA left the county hanging after taking advantage of its resources.

“I hear the talk and rhetoric. But I don’t think people have fought for the coal industry like they should have,” he said. “When it’s time for an election, it’s easy for a Democrat or Republican to say they support the coal industry. But if they don’t act on it, then I don’t know how helpful it is.”

Muhlenberg resident Steve Earle, the United Mine Workers District 12 Vice President, has seen the political focus dim, too. His office is filled with photos of coal and politics: Earle standing with President Bill Clinton, and FDR campaigning in a West Virginia coal camp.

With more than 5,000 members at one time in the area, he said, “we were a force to reckon with. It was a huge block of votes. All the elected officials solicited. They still do — but not as much...”

“For years when I lobbied in Frankfort, coal pretty much got what it wanted,” Earle explained. “I don’t think the coal industry has the clout it once did.”

His advice to those seeking jobs: “Don’t chase coal,” he said.

“A lot of coal miners just feel like they’ve been abandoned,” he said, noting few see promises for restoring coal as a savior for jobs anymore. “I think a lot of people have lost hope.”

Political giving mimics industry plunge

As coal jobs and production continue to plummet this year, so too are political campaign contributions from coal industry executives.

While the industry’s contributions to federal candidates and PACs quadrupled from the 2008 cycle to the 2012 cycle and neared $14 million in 2016, the most recent FEC filings show they have fallen to the lowest level since before Obama took office.

The upward spike in coal industry giving during the Obama administration funded waves of TV attack ads against Democratic candidates, but those contributions have now dropped as some of the industry’s giants fall into financial peril.

Leading the charge to defeat Democrats with their checkbooks after 2008 were executives from Murray Energy, Alpha Natural Resources, Peabody Energy and Arch Coal — but mostly Joe Craft, the CEO of Alliance Coal with strong Kentucky ties.

Craft not only doled out the majority of the $24 million in federal campaign contributions from Alliance since the 2010 cycle, but gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to Republicans’ efforts in Kentucky to win two races for governor and gain its first majority in the state House in over 100 years.

But as the industry started to collapse, so too did other companies’ ability to fill super PAC coffers.

Alpha Natural Resources filed for bankruptcy in 2015, followed by Peabody and Arch in 2016.

Murray Energy contributed more than $1.5 million to federal candidates and PACs in each of the 2012, 2014, 2016 and 2018 cycles, then pitched in just shy of $100,000 in 2019 to reelect Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin — who was narrowly defeated in November just days before the coal giant faced its own reckoning and filed for bankruptcy.

In the 2020 cycle, Alliance and Craft alone now account for more than 60% of the industry’s federal contributions.

A similar scenario has appeared to play out in Kentucky’s state legislative races this year, where coal industry donations are on track to be the lowest in years.

While Alliance made up 70-90% of industry’s hundreds of thousands of dollars spent on the gubernatorial races of 2015 and 2019 and the legislative races of 2016 and 2018, Kentucky Registry of Election Finance records show less than $20,000 in coal industry spending on 2020 state legislative races as of early October.

More false hope not needed

In mines not far from Hazard, William “Jay” McCool worked in coal for decades, doing jobs from roof-bolter to manager, surviving rockfalls and a slowly declining job market.

But McCool, 66, like his father and grandfather, retired after he was diagnosed with black lung disease, caused by breathing in coal dust and silica, which has seen a recent resurgence.

Talking recently in a diner in Perry County, he recounted traveling to Washington, D.C., last year with other miners to advocate for more excise taxes on coal companies to help fund the indebted Black Lung Disability Trust Fund, which supports disabled miners.

Some of the miners publicly blasted McConnell afterward for meeting with them only briefly, but McCool said the longtime senator promised to work on the issue.

This spring, mining companies sought to have the tax reduced, citing the pandemic. The fund is at risk for insolvency if Congress doesn’t take action by the end of the year.

He wants the federal government to make a commitment to the fund because the revival of coal mining that could have boosted it never came, he said.

“Trump said he’d bring miners back to work, but he didn’t,” he said, unsure of whether it was Trump’s fault or others in government. Regardless, he said, “I don’t think they even tried.”

The majority of Perry voters are registered Democrats but supported Trump, said Perry County Judge-Executive Scott Alexander, who calls himself a “God-fearing, gun-packing, coal-mining Democrat” who believes that national Democrats have “lost touch with rural America.”

But, over the past four years, he said he's seen hopes of a coal comeback fade.

“The politicians, they run these polls and see what issues the public is talking about — and if coal didn’t make the radar, then it’s not going to be discussed in the election cycle,” Alexander added. “And I think that’s the point where we’re at.”

Perry County saw coal employment drop 56% from the second quarter of 2020 compared to a year before, and coal jobs dropped 44% to 353, state statistics show.

In turn, the county’s budget has been further slammed by a steep drop in coal severance tax payments that are a tenth of what they once were, Alexander said. That's been coupled with declining property values and tax revenue.

Like other counties in a region that is among America’s poorest, Perry is struggling with cuts to services, a shortage of good-paying jobs and out-migration.

Alexander said his county is now focused on attracting new employers, which in recent years has included a drone testing facility and an aluminum parts manufacturer. So far, he's made promising progress in doing so, though such efforts are mixed across the region.

Much like promises about a coal revival, he said he’s careful not to make promises about new industries considering locating in his county before it happens.

“The last thing we need is another false hope,” he said.

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Election 2020: Kentucky coal's influence nowhere to be found