Clinton has a plan to help miners
CNBC recently visited Greene County for a story on the closing of Emerald Mine and the demise of coal mining across the country. They reported 300 miners lost their jobs when Emerald shuttered and 30,000 miners across the nation lost their jobs in the last five years. Greene County Commissioner Blair Zimmerman said miners heard Hillary Clinton was going to shut down the coal industry and Donald Trump was going to bring it back. CNBC heard from a former miner who said he didn’t know of one miner who wasn’t voting for Trump.
I have no sympathy for those Trump-supporting miners. Like many coal miners who followed in their father’s footsteps, I followed my father, an Observer-Reporter photographer, into his trade. He was very proud when I landed a job with the largest photographic company in the world, Eastman Kodak. I had a good career with Kodak, working my way to middle management. When digital technology made film obsolete, and upper management made bad decisions on future products, we started downsizing. I was responsible for handing pink slips to almost 500 good people.
Like technology that killed my industry, efficient electrical devices reduced the amount of power we need to burn and new technology brought us fracking. It wasn’t regulations from the Environmental Protection Agency that shut down the Hatfield’s Ferry Power Station, but technology. It wasn’t EPA rules that caused big coal operators to go bankrupt but, like the bad decisions that Kodak management made, the operators acquired metallurgical coal reserves at too high a price.
Hillary Clinton is the only presidential candidate with a plan to help miners and communities affected by the closing of mines. It’s a $30 billion plan. Trump has no plan. Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey has no plan. Only Clinton has a plan. Only a Democratic Senate will help her help those affected by the demise of coal.
Tying our future to a man who proves he is completely unfit for the job and offers false hopes seems foolish. Voting for and working with someone who at least tries to understand the problem gives you a chance at having a little control over your opportunities.
Ron Christman
Washington