{"id":136690,"date":"2018-06-04T19:25:53","date_gmt":"2018-06-05T01:25:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/?p=136690"},"modified":"2018-06-11T06:45:10","modified_gmt":"2018-06-11T12:45:10","slug":"as-trump-pushes-for-more-coal-gop-congress-is-bankrupting-the-black-lung-fund","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2018\/06\/04\/as-trump-pushes-for-more-coal-gop-congress-is-bankrupting-the-black-lung-fund.html","title":{"rendered":"As Trump pushes for more coal, GOP Congress is bankrupting the black lung fund"},"content":{"rendered":"

There’s actually a new epidemic of a very serious black lung variant appearing out there, even as the Trump administration is pushing hard for coal consumption to go up again.<\/p>\n

But this is the year when a special tax on coal which helps pay for a black lung medical fund dramatically drops. The GAO has estimated that, in fact, to keep the fund solvent, the tax needs to be increased<\/i>\u00a0beyond current levels.<\/p>\n

The coal industry is outraged … that they might be asked to pay more.<\/p>\n

Increasing the tax or even leaving the current rate in place would burden the coal industry, says Bruce Watzman, an executive at the National Mining Association. “The competition among fuels for electric generation is intense and a couple cents a kilowatt hour makes a difference in the fuel source that’s generating the electricity,” Watzman adds.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Mr Watzman, if you can’t actually make money to cover all<\/em> the costs on your product … maybe your product needs to go out of business.<\/p>\n

Or, alternately, don’t worry — Trump is considering plans to force utilities to buy coal power regardless of the price differential. Your Association should be just fine. Unlike your workers.<\/p>\n


\n
\n<\/a>
\nCoal Miners’ Fund Set For Deep Cuts As Black Lung Epidemic Grows : NPR<\/a><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Original Post<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There’s actually a new epidemic of a very serious black lung variant appearing out there, even as the Trump administration is pushing hard for coal consumption to go up again. But this is the year when a special tax on coal which helps pay for a black lung medical fund dramatically drops. The GAO has … Continue reading “As Trump pushes for more coal, GOP Congress is bankrupting the black lung fund”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":136710,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[106,35,748,77,131,376,1071],"tags":[1652,1253,1653],"class_list":["post-136690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-plusposts","category-big-business","category-weather-and-climate-change","category-economy","category-energy","category-taxing-spending","category-trump","tag-black-lung","tag-coal","tag-pitythegelth"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/coal-miner.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":28484,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/07\/09\/black-lung-is-back-oh-boy.html","url_meta":{"origin":136690,"position":0},"title":"Black lung is back, oh boy!","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 9-Jul-12 3:08pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Black lung disease, that old-timey coal mining disease, is making a resurgence. There are a lot of speculated reasons -- miners working much larger shifts, more mining in rockier mines with more powerful tools that kick up more dust -- but the major reason seems to be ... mining companies\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":132052,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/11\/16\/trump-isnt-going-to-fix-the-coal-problem.html","url_meta":{"origin":136690,"position":1},"title":"Trump isn't going to fix the coal problem","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 16-Nov-16 10:32pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Though Trump promised to solve the problem of coal miners losing their jobs because of the mythical Obama War on Coal, the facts of the matter make it highly unlikely that those coal jobs are ever coming back. Though the Obama Administration put in additional regulation on coal-firing plants and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":133852,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/07\/14\/because-we-need-more-coal-plants.html","url_meta":{"origin":136690,"position":2},"title":"Because we need MORE COAL PLANTS!","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 14-Jul-17 4:37pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Especially to burn more US coal!Especially if we spend money designed to combat climate change effects in poor countries!Because that would be BIGLY AWESOME!(Sigh.) Trump Wants to Steer UN Climate Cash to Building Coal Plants The U.S. will seek to use a United Nations fund designed to aid nations hard\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":133216,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/04\/06\/cold-on-coal.html","url_meta":{"origin":136690,"position":3},"title":"Cold on Coal","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 6-Apr-17 12:16pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Trump is in the process of trying to dismantle regulatory restrictions on and around the US coal industry, with a promise to bring back all those old coal-mining jobs.The problem is, the biggest customer for that coal - the power generation industry -- isn't having it. Why? Because they operate\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":137336,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2018\/10\/17\/the-coal-must-flow.html","url_meta":{"origin":136690,"position":4},"title":"The Coal Must Flow","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 17-Oct-18 11:46am","format":false,"excerpt":"Apparently Trump's plans to support coal and nuclear plants by executive fiat have run into the problem that it will actually cost money -- and customers, utilities, and federal agencies are all reluctant to do so.So the newest scheme is that, instead of saying that coal is essential for our\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":137249,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2018\/09\/25\/hey-remember-how-trump-kept-saying-how-reliable-coal-and-nuclear-power-were.html","url_meta":{"origin":136690,"position":5},"title":"Hey, remember how Trump kept saying how reliable coal and nuclear power were?","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 25-Sep-18 11:31pm","format":false,"excerpt":"The Trump Administration has been loosening regulations around coal and nuclear plants with the ostensible idea that they are somehow more reliable in case of an emergency. Except that if you consider Hurricane Florence an emergency, nuclear and coal turned out to be (dangerously) vulnerable, while wind and solar bounced\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136690","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=136690"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136690\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":136712,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136690\/revisions\/136712"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/136710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=136690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=136690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=136690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}