THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

During the recently deceased election campaign Donald and Mitch both pitched a desperate hope to a severely abused section of America, Kentucky coal miners. Promising to rid the coalfields of the regulations that minimally prevented the coal owners from killing as many miners as they liked, they raised hopes of a renascent industry. Now the election is over, Mitch gets to tell his voters that he lied bigly.

“If I win we’re going to bring those miners back,” Trump said at the rally. “…These ridiculous rules and regulations that make it impossible for you to compete … we’re going to take that all off the table, folks.”

With Trump’s election and Republicans controlling both chambers of Congress, many in Kentucky are now waiting to cash in on the Republican promise of more coal jobs.

U.S. Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, though, wasn’t making any promises Friday.

“We are going to be presenting to the new president a variety of options that could end this assault,” McConnell said at the University of Louisville. “Whether that immediately brings business back is hard to tell because it’s a private sector activity.”

The interim president of the Kentucky Coal Association was more direct about the future of coal mining in Eastern Kentucky.

“I would not expect to see a lot of growth because of the Trump presidency,” Nick Carter said in an interview. “If there is any growth in Eastern Kentucky, it will be because of an improved economy for coal.”

Experts agree that environmental regulations placed on the coal industry contributed to a rapid decline of the coal industry over the past few years, but there have been other, more important economic factors at play.

“The issues, particularly in the eastern part of Kentucky, are more than the increase of regulations,” said Ken Troske, Sturgill Professor of Economics at the University of Kentucky.

One of those issues is a decrease in demand for coal.

Carter said the low price of natural gas contributes to the lack of demand for coal. As the energy industry builds new power plants, it’s more likely to build plants that run on natural gas because the price isn’t as high.

“We will need to end or do away with the Clean Power Plan that prohibits the building of a coal power plant anywhere in the country,” Carter said.

But even if demand for cheaper coal returns, many of the jobs lost over the past decade aren’t likely to be restored, particularly in Eastern Kentucky.

You can't sell a product that no one wants. With all that coal in the ground, maybe they could frack it and capture the methane that often makes mines a hazard. That would provide some jobs and they could continue to poison the rivers and streams of that part of the world.