Campaign Promises Retrospective: Coal, Ctd

In an update on the coal industry in Trump’s America, the number of coal companies to file for bankruptcy YTD is now up to five:

Murray Energy Corp., the private coal giant whose founder pushed the Trump administration for an overhaul of what it called “anti-coal” environmental policy, filed for Chapter 11 protection on Tuesday.

It’s the fifth coal company to land in bankruptcy court this year, in a rapidly shrinking industry that’s being squeezed out of the U.S. power market by cheaper options such as natural gas, solar and wind power.

As noted earlier, the coal industry is reaching the end of its rope, and it’s incumbent on the government to take note and … not save it. I don’t say that because it’s the free market thing to do, because we’re not talking about a free market when various energy sources have notoriously been getting government support for years, but because of the environmental concerns of powering a civilization overpopulating itself. Tomorrow’s generations do not deserve more damage inflicted on the environment upon which they will depend just because that would mean corporate survival for coal mining companies.

But the government should step in:

The legal maneuver also could imperil the solvency of a major pension fund that covers tens of thousands of coal miners and has renewed calls for the federal government to step in and help support the retirement payments.

“We’re talking about 82,000 miners who are going to lose their pensions, and we’re fighting this,” Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.), whose state is home to large Murray Energy operations, said in a radio interview on West Virginia MetroNews on Tuesday.

And this is what the country is about – taking care of each other. I’d like to see the government step forward and keep those pensions funded.