It wasn't too long ago that Ohio Valley residents regularly read Murray Energy PR releases posing as news stories on the front pages of our local Ogden “newspapers.” I’m not sure what has changed but I don't see them as often as I once did. In case your day is not complete without Murray Energy news, here are some recent stories featuring the local energy company.

Don’t let grandma die on the operating table

From Huffington Post:

Bob Murray, the chief executive of coal giant Murray Energy Corporation, issued a grave warning to the nation’s leading renewable energy conference on Tuesday.

Subsidize coal-fired power plants, he said, or grandma gets it.

“You have a responsibility in this room to make sure grandma doesn’t die on the operating table,” Murray, 78, told an audience of energy analysts, investors and executives packed into the ballroom of the Grand Hyatt New York in midtown Manhattan.

In an impassioned 15-minute speech at the annual Bloomberg New Energy Finance summit, Murray repeatedly dismissed the threat of climate change and instead cautioned that the electrical grid risked collapse without reliable energy from coal-fired plants.

Bob Murray calls big oil companies “prostitutes”

At that same energy conference -- as Axios described:

Bob Murray, CEO of coal producer Murray Energy, likened global oil and gas companies to “prostitutes,” arguing they sell whatever it takes in global markets.

Here’s Murray’s explanation:

Murray named ExxonMobil, BP and Shell as companies that fit the “prostitute” mold. Unlike Murray’s company, which he privately owns, these publicly traded oil and gas companies are among corporations facing increasing pressure from investors to more readily acknowledge the risks climate change and carbon regulations pose to their bottom lines. BP and Shell are also investing more in renewable energy.

So if I understand this, they’re prostitutes because they listen to their investors.

Murray Energy to buy and run power plants

From Crain’s Cleveland Business:

Robert Murray, CEO of St. Clairsville, Ohio-based Murray Energy Corp., wants to buy coal-fired power plants to shore up his mining company.

An acquisition could happen as early as this year, allowing the company to mine coal, transport it to plants and then burn it to generate power, Murray said on the sidelines of the Bloomberg New Energy Finance Future of Energy Summit in New York.

And sounding like his favorite president:

"If you can dig coal out of the ground, you sure as heck can run a power plant," he said. "We can run power plants better than the utilities can."

Maybe getting rid of Scott Pruitt isn’t such a good idea after all

That’s because of who might replace him. From Mother Jones:

The Senate is about to confirm the man who would take over the Environmental Protection Agency should Scott Pruitt step down. Andrew Wheeler, an energy lobbyist who has worked for the Senate’s biggest climate change denier, faces a confirmation vote for deputy administrator, the number two position at the agency, as soon as Tuesday. . . .

“It would be similar to having a tobacco lobbyist heading up the American Lung Association,” Judith Enck, an Obama-era former EPA regional administrator, said in an email. “Wheeler would continue the polluting policies of Pruitt but perhaps have the good sense not to violate federal ethics rules.”

As a lobbyist with the firm Faegre Baker Daniel, one of his major clients has been the nation’s largest private coal company, Murray Energy, whose CEO Bob Murray has been a generous Republican donor and Trump supporter.

The Mother Jones article has a lot more on Wheeler. I previously wrote about Wheeler here.