Hillary Clinton Proposes $30 Billion Plan To Help Coal Communities

[DemocratSinceBirth]

WASHINGTON -- Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton unveiled a $30 billion plan Thursday that would protect coal miners' benefits and prepare their communities as the U.S. transitions to cleaner energy sources. While Clinton has embraced strong policies to combat climate change and ultimately voiced her opposition to the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, the Democratic front-runner’s new proposal makes clear she won’t forget about coal.

As the last pillar of her energy and climate agenda, Clinton’s plan, provided to HuffPost by a campaign official, focuses on safeguarding coal miners' health and retirement benefits, and shifting local economies away from coal production rather than injecting more money into the ailing industry.

Coal has struggled to keep pace with the natural gas boom and increasingly affordable renewable energy sources. Latest estimates have put renewable energy on pace to surpass coal as the largest source of electricity generation by 2030.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/hillary-clinton-coal_56449c92e4b08cda34878b5d

[Agnosticsherbet]

1. This is a really good idea.

We can't leave these people behind simply because we are phasing out coal.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

3. The Ds will do a lot more for the white working class than the Rs.

That's for sure!!!


Great idea !!!

[Agnosticsherbet]

5. If we want to accelerate the change to reknewables, we can not abandon the people who exist

in those older industries. That raises fear and anger. This was a large contributor to the loss of elections by Democrats in Kentucky.

I see this as part of a comprehensive change of technology.

[JaneyVee]

6. Yes. THIS is the missing link to transitioning to clean energy.

K and R.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

4. Huh

[HassleCat]

7. Good ideas never work

OK, they work a little bit. What you have to realize about these federal programs is that they have a low success rate. I lived in a timber-dependent area in Washington (the state, not DC) and we had a big federal program for displaced timber workers. All those log truck drives an plywood mill workers and so on. People used the program to get free commuters, go to community college, etc. When the program ended, they went back home, plunked themselves down on the couch, and watched Duck Dynasty. OK, Duck Dynasty wasn't on the air then, but you see what I mean. They wanted their old jobs at the lumber mills, and they didn't want to sit in front of a computer, and they didn't care if the new job paid more than the old job. Some of them even had bumper stickers that said, "I'M A TIMBER WORKER. FUCK RE-TRAINING!"

I worked in a federal program intended to teach employable trade skills to young people, and it was the same story. Most of them completed the program, went back home, plunked down on the couch, and watched BET. Except for the choice of television program, it was the same story as with the timber workers.

So $30 billion will not produce much, I imagine. There will be some heart-warming anecdotes about the biggest success stories. And it will keep a few people off the welfare rolls. And that's OK. These programs play to a tough audience, mostly people who dropped out of high school to work in the mines or the mills. They have very definite ideas about what they will or will not do for a living. I worked in a tree nursery where we grew and processed the seedling trees that would eventually grow up and be cut down by loggers. The men who worked in the woods and the mills sent their wives to work in the tree nursery while they sat home and collected unemployment, because men did not work in tree nurseries. Not real men, anyway.

But $30 billion is chicken feed, and it's a better investment than buying a couple new fighter jets. So it's a good idea, as long as we don't expect too much from it. The problem will come in trying to get it through congress, where it will be opposed by all sorts of interests, but most significantly by the coal companies, who will say, "Just end the war on coal, and you won't need $30 billion to help displaced workers."