Bill Straub: Though the demagoguery continues on coal, the real truth is that there is no future for it

Those who managed to survive a viewing of the Republican presidential debate from Milwaukee on Tuesday evening – and a bronze medal is being cast for you as we speak – heard Sen Rand Paul yet again vow to deep six every federal clean air regulation he can place his grimy meat hooks on should he become the nation’s 45th chief executive

(Pause for laughter to subside).

“It would be a mistake to shut down the industries in the coal fields,” Paul said, insisting that ongoing efforts to force coal-fired power plants to reduce unhealthful emissions like carbon dioxide could conceivably leave folks in certain parts of this great nation without reliable energy over the long winter.

“It would be a big danger,” Paul declared. “Let people drill, let ‘em produce, let ‘em explore.”

Paul, of Bowling Green, vowed to squash President Barak Obama’s Clean Power Plan, which is aimed at reducing emissions and is expected to be cited when the United States attempts to curry universal favor for a global climate treaty to be signed in Paris later this month.

Kentucky’s junior senator reluctantly admitted that humanity maybe, perhaps, conceivably, perchance, could be playing a support role in global climate change as a result of its lust for energy, regardless of how destructive the generation of same might prove to be. He tempered that observation by declaring we need to “look before we leap,’’ apparently dumb to the fact that the federal government has been looking at the problem for years and hasn’t jumped yet.

The cherry on top of this rancid sundae, of course, was Paul’s ad infinitum declaration that Obama’s clean air policies have – get ready for it – “devastated’’ life in the Kentucky coal fields.

Finding a politician in Kentucky willing to speak truthfully about the future of coal, and that includes Gov. Steve Beshear, is like waiting for Godot – they ain’t gonna show up anytime soon.

Instead, like the Pied Piper, they tweet a tune desperate folks follow, and sooner or later it will lead to oblivion.

The curtain is closing on the coal culture, particularly in the Eastern Kentucky mountains, and the protestations of Paul, Beshear, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, of Louisville, and the rest aren’t going to save it. What their purposely misguided rhetoric is going to do is leave Appalachia in sorrier shape than it currently finds itself. And the rest of the nation will move on.

Want to hear someone speak the truth? Let’s take a quick trip over to West Virginia, which ranks second in the nation, behind only Wyoming in coal production to Kentucky’s third. There, according to the Charleston Gazette-Mail, Charles Patton, president of Appalachian Power, acknowledged that coal consumption is not likely to increase regardless of federal regulations and that the national debate on coal and climate change, from the coal industry’s perspective, has largely been lost.

“You just can’t go with new coal [plants] at this point in time,” the Gazette-Mail quoted Patton as saying during the West Virginia State Energy Summit last month. “It is just not economically feasible to do so.”

By 2026, Patton said, Appalachian Power expects its own coal consumption will drop by 26 percent even if the Obama Clean Power Plan never sees the light of day. It all comes down to economics – the cost of electricity generated by natural gas, including costs related to power plant construction and infrastructure, is about $73 per megawatt hour compared to $95 per megawatt hour for a conventional coal plant.

Even wind power, much derided by coal interests, is cheaper, at $73 per megawatt hour when federal tax credits are included.

“With or without the Clean Power Plan, the economics of alternatives to fossil-based fuels are making inroads in the utility plan,” Patton said, according to the paper. “Companies are making decisions today where they are moving away from coal-fired generation.”

The numbers don’t lie. According to the U.S. Energy Administration, Kentucky coal production dropped by 11.5 percent from 2012 to 2013. The dip was particularly severe in the eastern part of the state, which suffered a 19.1 percent decline. The number of mines operating in the Appalachian part of the state during the same time period went from 330 to 246, a 25.5 percent plunge.

Employment figures tell the same story. Statewide, coal mine jobs fell 21.1 percent from 2012 to 2013. In Eastern Kentucky the figure was 27.3 percent.

And the signs don’t end at the commonwealth’s borders. For the first time in two decades, U.S. coal production fell below one billion short tons to 984.8 million in 2013, down from 1,016.5 million short tons in 2012. The average number of employees at U.S. coal mines decreased 10.5 percent to 80,396, a decrease of 9,442 employees compared to 2012.

And it’s important to remember – all of this occurred before Obama released the Clean Power Plan. The precipitous decline occurred before the Environmental Protection Agency dared step in.

Yet here is Rand Paul, playing to the cheap seats, convincing the citizens of the commonwealth to pay no attention to the man behind the curtain and urging them to dig, dig, dig.

And leave us not forget our old pal Mitch who has introduced legislation to overturn the Clean Power Plan, calling to mind the old saw about horses and barn doors.

“It won’t make any noticeable difference to the global environment,’’ McConnell declared on the Senate floor last month. “But it will ship more middle-class jobs overseas. It will punish the poor. It will make it even harder for coal families in states like Kentucky to put food on the table.

“In other words, it’s facts-optional extremism wrapped in callous indifference,’’ he said.

Oh where to begin, other than utilizing a well-worn barnyard epithet.

Implementing the plan is, as noted earlier, aimed at convincing other nations to reduce CO2 emissions as well, hence the Paris talks, which could indeed lead to a noticeable difference in the global environment.

And what jobs are being shipped overseas? For one thing, at the current rate of descent, there simply won’t be any coal jobs to dispatch elsewhere. Meanwhile, reports establish that China, the world’s largest coal consumer, is burning less of stuff, lending credence to that nation’s pledge to reduce greenhouse gas emissions like CO2 that currently are the highest levels on the planet.

China is positioning itself to play a positive role at the Paris talks and President Xi Jinping has vowed to implement a cap-and-trade system by 2017. Without China and other nations seeking to reduce carbon levels, coal production will only decline, producing even fewer jobs.

It is, in fact, McConnell’s refusal to plan for a post-coal Kentucky, rather than support some illusion, that punishes the poor and will render it more difficult for families to put food on the table. It’s probably rude to use the word demagoguery in situations like this. But then again…

Patton opposes Obama’s Clean Power Plan. But he’s also a realist.

“Americans believe there is a problem and while we in West Virginia believe that’s ludicrous and we have our view on coal, it’s really important to understand, if you’re not in a coal-producing state, your affinity for coal is not there,” Patton said. “The debate largely, at this point in time, has been lost.”

Last June, Kentucky and the nation as a whole lost a real jewel in Jean Ritchie, who wrote and sang the old songs, at the age of 92. Ritchie saw this coming years ago, and her words still resonate:

Last night I dreamed I went down to the office
To get my payday like I’ve done before
But those kudzu vines they were covering over the doorway
And there were weeds and grass growing right up through the floor.
 And I was born and raised in the mouth of a Hazard holler
 Where the coal cars rolled and rumbled past my door
 But now they stand in a rusty row of empties
 ‘Cause the L&N don’t stop here anymore.

Washington correspondent Bill Straub served 11 years as the Frankfort Bureau chief for The Kentucky Post. He also is the former White House/political correspondent for Scripps Howard News Service. He currently resides in Silver Spring, Maryland, and writes frequently about the federal government and politics. Email him at williamgstraub@gmail.com.