The EPA’s Latest Victims: 8 Coal Mines

Virginia U.S. Senate candidate Tim Kaine. Photo Credit: DonkeyHotey/Flickr

By Rick Manning — The EPA added 8 new victims to it’s death toll today when Alpha Natural Resources announced that it would be closing 3 Virginia coal mines and 5 other mines in West Virginia and Pennsylvania resulting in the destruction of 1,200 more coal mining jobs. This is just the latest in a long and steady string of coal mining jobs lost due to the EPA’s War on Coal.

These shutdowns are the result of radical environmentalist policy that has been supported by former Virginia Governor and DNC Chairman Tim Kaine and Pennsylvania U.S. Senator Bob Casey.

As recently as July, Kaine bemoaned suggestions to weaken job-destroying EPA regulations saying  in the New York Times, “My advice is, don’t try to weaken regulations. Sell your story. Say we can meet these standards.”

In January of 2008, Obama said “If somebody wants to build a coal-fired power plant they can, it’s just that it will bankrupt them” when referring to his Cap-and-Trade proposals supported by both Kaine and Casey.

Today’s news is proof that job creation and regulations aimed at destroying the coal industry cannot coexist and the loss of jobs is the direct responsibility of Tim Kaine and Bob Casey who have supported the policies that caused these mine closures.

The closings came as no surprise to Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson who predicted last March that the coal mining industry would fall prey to the out-of-control EPA. “All these EPA guidelines, rules and regulations are nothing more than an attempt to end coal production in the U.S.,” said Wilson.

Unfortunately today’s announcement proves Wilson correct. And it shows that the EPA run by the radical-enviros is completely run amok.

Rick Manning is the Communications Director at Americans for Limited Government.