On coal

From this morning’s Wheeling Intelligencer editorial:

We know for a fact that he kept the promises he made to West Virginians. The “war on coal” prosecuted with such vigor by the previous administration was reexamined under Trump. Environmental Protection Agency initiatives launched solely to close coal mines and coal-fired power plants have been and will be reversed.

So the bottom line is that Trump kept his pledges to Mountain State residents.

So what has Trump done for West Virginia?

The Great State of West Virginia is producing record setting numbers and doing really well. When I became President, it was practically shut down and closed for business. Not anymore!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 21, 2019

Really? According to Forbes last week:

With the announcement of the fourth and sixth-largest coal mines closing earlier this month, President Trump will have added almost no coal jobs while he has been in office.

And yesterday’s Huffington Post ,with the help of Sean O’Leary and the West Virginia Center on Budget & Policy, documents a more realistic appraisal of the West Virginia economy:

In the actual world, West Virginia has increasing poverty, more deaths than births each year, a significantly smaller workforce than a decade ago and the lowest median household income in the country.

We’re not this gangbusters economy that sometimes we’re portrayed as,” said Sean O’Leary, an analyst at the West Virginia Center on Budget & Policy, who said the main employment growth has been in construction jobs for new natural gas pipelines, which are temporary. “If you look outside that sector of the economy, there is almost no growth.”

Funny, I don’t remember when Trump pledged that his coal policies would kill more of my fellow northern Appalachians

As the result of Trump’s coal policies:

More deaths? Yes, that’s certainly, in the words of the editorial, a “bottom line.” Funny, the Intelligencer has nothing to say about that.