West Virginia's coal miners are the best in the world
About the Author
I represent most of the coal companies and their vendors who do business within the state of West Virginia.
About This Video
West Virginia’s coal and electrical generation industries, combined, account for more than 50 percent of the state’s total gross domestic product. Coal provides the fuel that supplies 98 percent of the state’s electrical needs and more than 50 percent of the nation’s needs. In some counties in West Virginia, coal mining accounts for more than 95 percent of the county’s budget. These miners make an average of $62,000 per year – far above the state average wage and they receive comprehensive benefits packages. These are good quality, high-paying, technology-based jobs.
These people are not the coal miners of history. In fact, they are the true environmentalists, with some companies planting literally millions of trees each year.
They take great pride in their jobs and in their communities.
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1 comment for "West Virginia's coal miners are the best in the world".
1. Misleading video
The coal companies (not the miners) Bill Raney represents are not in business for the purpose of providing jobs. Their purpose is to provide profits for shareholders, and when market conditions reduce those profits, they lay off miners. Economic diversification is a must, but the coal industry opposes renewable energy (such as the Coal River Mountain Wind project), environmental regulations, safety regulations, and efforts to enforce environmental and safety laws. Bill Raney represents an industry that denies the climate crisis or offers false solutions (such as carbon capture and sequestration) in order to continue profiting while they push the human species closer to catastrophe. They continue extracting coal by mountaintop removal, threatening human communities and destroying water resources. Coal is only cheap because the average citizen pays a heavy price that never shows up on the electric bill.
By the way, planting a few trees does not replace all those that were clear cut and burned or buried, and it certainly doesn't replace a real forest.