McConnell links Grimes with Harry Reid, bad coal

"Coal makes us sick, oil makes us sick, it's ruining our country, it's ruining our world."

Get used to those words. You're going to hear them a lot.

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid uttered them on June 30, 2008 as he urged the consideration of alternative forms of energy as fuel prices skyrocketed.

Expect Mitch McConnell to repeat them every time he speaks in a effort to tie Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes to Reid and, by extension, President Barack Obama who is pushing for tougher environmental regulations that some worry will cripple the coal industry.

Grimes has said she doesn't agree with Obama on the issue of coal but that doesn't seem to make much difference as McConnell hammers away on her day after day.

During his acceptance speech Tuesday, he quoted Reid. He did it again at a press conference Friday.

"If I were to be replaced by my opponent, they would unscrew my desk on my side, move it over to the other side by Harry Reid and she would vote to make Harry Reid, who said coal makes you sick, the majority leader of the Senate," McConnell said.

Grimes has refused to say if she would support Reid, saying in January, "I will evaluate all decisions, whether they be choices in leadership or legislation ... with this in mind: 'Is it better for the people of Kentucky?' That's where I'll be."

But none of that seems to matter. McConnell's entire campaign appears to be a variant on this: "Coal good. Obama bad."

But the big question is, what is so wrong with what Reid said?

The production and burning of coal and other fossil fuels does make people sick.

The burning of coal causes heart and lung problems for people who live downwind of coal fired power plants where the effect of tiny particles and other pollutants like lead, mercury and arsenic are released into the air are well documented, said Tom FitzGerald, executive director of the Kentucky Resources Council.

The mining of coal cause black lung disease among miners and other problems for those who live downstream, he said.

A study by a researcher at the University of West Virginia found people who live near coal mines have higher rates of chronic heart, respiratory and kidney disease deaths. The researcher also found higher rates of birth defects in those communities.

McConnell didn't dispute Friday that coal has adverse health affects during a press conference but pivoted to an answer about the economy of coal.

I asked him whether coal does in fact cause respiratory problems for people who breathe in coal plant emissions and the miners who retrieve the nation's coal. Here's what he said:

"We're burning coal cleaner and cleaner and cleaner. It's really a war on fossil fuel across the board by these guys and its important to also recognize that 40 percent of our electricity in America comes from coal fired generation, 90 percent in Kentucky. They have no plans to replace it. Now, we're looking at potential brown-outs here in the not-to-distant future if they continue down this path, so we all want a cleaner environment. I think America's made incredible strides toward a cleaner environment in a variety of different ways ... but this is an economic disaster for us."

But FitzGerald notes that those "incredible strides" came because of past federal law and regulations that were forced upon an industry unwilling to change. "The industry had to be dragged kicking and screaming," he said.

And each time the regulations were made stricter, it was because of strong medical evidence that showed the old standards, while better than nothing, were nevertheless allowing illness, suffering and death, he said. Current research shows "there is still significant impact downwind and downstream," he said.

Grimes won't tell you this, either, because she, like McConnell, doesn't want to anger the pro-coal forces that helped kick former U.S. Rep. Ben Chandler out of office in 2012.

It's all true, though. You can look it up. Even McConnell didn't dispute that Reid was right when he said that coal mining does, in fact, make us sick.

Maybe he just thinks Reid shouldn't have said it.

Reporter Joseph Gerth can be reached at (502) 582-4702. Follow him on Twitter at @Joe_Gerth.