Obama policies hammered following coal-mine closings, layoffs
Over $70 was the cost of refueling our minivan. For the first time, filling the tank in my 4-cyl car was over $50. What steps has the Obama admin taken to make domestic oil more available and reduce the cost of buying foreign oil? NONE!
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Alpha Natural Resources announced Tuesday its plan to cut the positions and scale back coal production by 16 million tons annually — which would result in eight mine closings in Virginia, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Four-hundred workers will be laid off immediately, though the company reportedly may try to re-hire some of the 1,200.
Kevin Crutchfield, the company’s chief executive officer, said the lay-offs and the closings of the non-union mines are the result a difficult market in which power plants are switching to abundant, less-expensive natural gas and “a regulatory environment that’s aggressively aimed at constraining the use of coal.”
However, elected officials and business groups have been less oblique in their analysis, saying Alpha employees are victims of President Obama’s so-called “War on Coal.”
The Mitt Romney campaign is among the most recent to put the blame squarely on the president, releasing a TV ad Wednesday that reminds voters about what Obama said in 2008.
“If somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can, it’s just that it will bankrupt them,” the president said, in a quote interpreted by critics as a campaign promise that coal would have no future in an Obama White House.
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