Introduction
Coal Was West Virginia
Why Is Coal No Longer King?
Why Should I Care If I Don't Live In The Coal fields?
Why Is West Virginia Poor?
What Can Be Done?
Introduction
It is pathetic -- though predictable -- to see our gubernatorial candidates falling all over one another to accommodate the coal industry. Cecil Underwood and Jim Lees take money from Buck Harless and other coal operators, while Bob Wise panders to a union leadership now in bed with the same operators -- Buck, Little Buck, and Littler Buck (you figure out which is which). It's an awfully little quilt on that bed, and a lot of bare feet sticking out.
Here's the bad joke. While our political leaders scramble to prop up a dying industry rather than diversify our economy, other states are working to help their already diversified economies adapt to the new realities of the internet. West Virginia is not one, but two steps behind.
I often speak to students at colleges and high schools. At each school, I ask the question "How many of you hope to work for the coal industry some day?" I have yet to have one student raise a hand. But I know that if these students are able to stay in West Virginia, their tax dollars in decades to come will be paying for the messes the coal industry is creating today. Is this what we want to leave our children?
West Virginia is facing the most crucial question since its founding. Will we plan ahead and move beyond coal, or will we allow the coal industry to drag us down with it? I have yet to see a gubernatorial candidate with the courage or vision to challenge our supposed dependence on coal. That is one of the biggest reasons I'm running for governor.
Coal Was West Virginia -- Where Has It Gotten Us?
I grew up with the catchy industry TV commercials that cheerily declared "Coal Is West Virginia!" Once that was true, as the industry was by far the largest employer in the state, and West Virginia was the nation's -- and the world's -- leading source of coal. Once coal employed hundreds of thousands of miners and other workers. Those days are gone. And while some mourn their passing, a strong case can be made that coal has been a curse rather than a blessing for our state.
Billions of dollars of mineral wealth left our state in the last century; little stayed behind. Were this not the case, West Virginia would be one of the most prosperous states in the U.S. We all know the reality. The "Billion Dollar Coal fields" once heralded on billboards are now the poorest areas of one of the poorest states in the nation. Coal has always been a boom or bust industry; West Virginia has therefore had a sometimes boom but mostly bust economy.
Coal has also left us a legacy of spineless politicians beholden to party bosses and industry money, government that ignores the needs of the people, a shattered infrastructure, and a severely damaged environment.
Why Is Coal No Longer King?
It is expedient for the coal industry and our obedient politicians to blame coal's woes on Judge Haden's mountaintop removal ruling. This is ludicrous. The recent decision of the Pittston Company to get out of the coal business was long in coming and had nothing to do with the judge's decision. If you are looking for the killer of King Coal, here is Who Dunnit:
1. International environmental pressure: We do not live in a vacuum but in the larger world. And the larger world is moving away from fossil fuels. This is not happening overnight, but it is a reality. Within our lifetimes homes and cars will be fueled by natural gas and hydrogen cells. Solar and wind technologies are also being refined and will be major sources of energy. Wouldn't it be nice if West Virginia could ride the crest of this wave rather than being crushed by it?
2. International market conditions: No matter how weak our environmental regulations, we cannot compete with cheap coal from China and South America. Unfortunately for those places, coal is mined there with poverty wages and little environmental regulation. Western U.S. coal has also overtaken West Virginia as a market favorite.
(GUESS WHAT? The same companies who mine our coal, Arch and Massey for example, are also mining western and foreign coal. They are "competing" against themselves.)
Why Should I Care If I Don't Live In The Coal fields?
West Virginians who do not live in coal mining areas may wonder why this issue should affect them. The reason is twofold. FIRST, if you are a West Virginia taxpayer this issue is important to you. No matter where you live, from Chester to Charles Town to Charleston, your taxes are subsidizing the coal industry. Your property taxes make up for the ridiculously low property taxes assessed to the industry. Your gasoline taxes pay to repair roads chewed up by overweight coal trucks. Your taxes pay to clean up slurry spills, subsidence, acid stream pollution, damaged ground water tables, flood damage near silt-filled rivers, and mining-related health problems. If you own a business, you are subsidizing coal industry workers comp debts.
SECOND, whatever problems your area faces, you can be sure that our state government is not giving those problems appropriate attention. Why? Because there is just so much time, energy, and money to go around, and the coal industry commands most of those resources from state government. Do you believe your community has the ear of the governor in the same way the coal industry does?
Why Is West Virginia Poor?
The coal industry and politicians who toady to it blame our mountainous terrain for our economic woes. But the fact is there are plenty of prosperous mountain regions in the world. Colorado, Vermont, New Hampshire, upstate New York, the Canadian Rockies, and the Alps come to mind. But is there one coal-mining region in the entire world which is prosperous? No. The coal industry pays a modest severance tax on each ton of coal dug, a tax that comes nowhere near reflecting the value of that coal. The coal industry enjoys laughably low property tax assessments, and sometimes avoids even this obligation. The coal industry receives supertax credits to flatten West Virginia's mountains. The coal industry shirks its responsibilities to workers compensation.
Coal mining areas of the state have high unemployment and no economic diversity. Many communities have no water or sewage systems, little to offer in terms of cultural and recreational activities. The schools are terribly underfunded and mismanaged. Local political systems operate on patronage rather than citizen participation.
What Can Be Done?
There's a lot that can be accomplished if we only face this problem head-on. Here's a list.
1. Most land in the coal fields is owned by absentee corporations, many of them railroads or land companies, many controlling tens and even hundreds of thousands of acres. Let's turn this economic liability into an economic asset. Hit absentee owners with a three-way tax assault -- appraise their land at its true and actual value as the state constitution requires, tax royalties received from coal and gas companies, and impose a graduated excess acreage tax on holdings of 10,000 acres or more.
2. Bring business, labor, banks, colleges, environmentalists, government officials, and citizens to the table to create a "Marshall Plan" for coal field economic development.
3. Identify absentee-owned sites in the coal fields that are suitable for economic development and use the right of eminent domain to make them available to West Virginia businesses.
4. Call on the education departments of our colleges and universities to partner with schools in at-risk counties, as is being done in California. Create exchange programs to funnel personnel and programs from other parts of the state to coal field counties. Depoliticize coal field school systems. Offer incentives for recent education graduates to teach in coal field counties.
5. Halt the environmental damage caused by mountaintop removal until previously mined sites have been developed. Develop the environmental and tourist potential of southern West Virginia.
6. Remind ourselves that a state with clean progressive political leadership, good schools, and a clean environment is a state that is attractive to business.
7. Break from the old corrupt one-party political model that has run West Virginia into the ground and demand political leadership that is independent of the coal industry. Elect leaders who will listen to Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives and moderates, but will not kowtow to the old tired political and coal industry factions that have served our state so ill.
We can take back West Virginia!
