Cross | Beyond coal

Politics keeps complicating efforts to diversify the economy of Appalachian Kentucky, especially the eastern-coalfield counties that have seen nearly half their coal jobs disappear in the last two years.

The issues are mainly among Republicans, but a Democrat provided the spark for the latest example. At an Aug. 13 Louisville Forum luncheon, liberal Rep. Tom Burch of Louisville said the state needs to look beyond coal and develop more renewable energy, adding, "If we could get coal out of the way, I think we'd have a lot of good things going here."

That riled up Republicans, and started a spat among their two candidates for governor, former Louisville councilman Hal Heiner and Agriculture Commissioner James Comer, who recently started Appalachia Proud, an effort to brand and encourage commercial agriculture and horticulture in the eastern coalfield.

Heiner cited remarks Comer made last November to Louisville's WFPL: "A lot of leaders in Eastern Kentucky keep talking about 'coal is the answer and there is a war on coal.' I'm a friend of coal. I support the coal industry. But the coal industry's future doesn't look bright and we have to look beyond that and learn to develop a new economy in Eastern Kentucky."

Focusing on the last sentence, Heiner told the radio station, "This is an issue where Jamie and I fundamentally disagree. He said that the coal industry's future doesn't look bright and we have to look beyond coal to something else. I think that with the proper leadership, the future of coal in Kentucky is very bright."

Heiner knows something about the industry, but he's blowing coal smoke. I'll bet no one who understands the industry sees a bright future for it in Central Appalachia, where coal is more expensive to mine than anywhere else in the U.S., cheap natural gas is stealing its regional power-plant market, and the resource has become so depleted that some mountaintop-removal mines are excavating 20 tons of rock and dirt per ton of coal and underground miners are working in seams only 2 ½ feet thick.

WFPL called Comer's 2013 remarks "similar" to Burch's, and this newspaper called them "very similar," but that's true only in the sense that both men want to look beyond coal, as any responsible public official should, especially in the east. Comer clearly doesn't want it "out of the way," as evidenced by his support more than a year ago from the state's leading coal operator, Joe Craft — a Hazard native who mines mainly in Western Kentucky, where coal's geology and economics are different.

In response to Heiner, Comer told WFPL, "Coal is the best source of energy, and I will do anything I can as governor to protect and promote Kentucky coal. Obama's war on coal has been detrimental to East Kentucky, and we have to find industries to replace it."

In blowing coal smoke, Heiner may be following the lead of U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell, whose re-election campaign has used President Obama's anti-coal policies to blow a hole in the 80-year-old Democratic stronghold of the eastern coalfield and post a marginal lead in polls over Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes.

McConnell and Sen. Rand Paul were on hand in March when Comer went to heavily Democratic Knott County to announce his Appalachian initiative, but McConnell has shown less enthusiasm for Shaping Our Appalachian Region, a broader, bipartisan effort by Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear and Republican 5th District U.S. Rep. Hal Rogers to diversify and improve Eastern Kentucky's economy.

After Rogers and Beshear spoke about SOAR to the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce's annual meeting last month, I buttonholed them jointly and asked each a different question.

First, I asked Beshear whether Obama had delivered on his statement, in his agenda-setting speech on climate change last year, to take special care of areas that suffered because of his policies. "He's got a long way to go," Beshear replied.

Then I asked Rogers what Kentucky's two Republican senators had done for SOAR. He smiled and said, "Well, they've been busy." In other words, I deduced, not as much as he hoped.

Paul is an all-but-announced candidate for president. His Kentucky spokesman, Dan Bayens, said the senator's staff "has participated in at least seven SOAR meetings/events," and Paul is "generally supportive" of the effort.

McConnell's Kentucky chief of staff, Terry Carmack, said the senator supports SOAR, and McConnell staffers have attended its four major meetings. But none have attended any of the 50 or so working-group listening sessions this summer that have gathered ideas for the effort, and in an unguarded moment, a McConnell aide said they didn't want to "throw coal under the bus" with SOAR.

That is not what SOAR is about, as Beshear and Rogers have made clear, but if you're running a re-election campaign based on defending coal, that sort of attitude can develop — especially if you're dealing with an industry that is used to being the big dog in the neighborhood and hasn't shown much interest in helping diversify the economy of a poor region from which it has extracted vast wealth.

And this reactionary attitude could grow, because SOAR's Health Working Group plans to make one of its top two recommendations that official attention be paid to the legitimate questions that scientific studies have raised about the health effects of surface coal mining in Central Appalachia. The studies have shown only correlation, not causation, but there's enough evidence to make it an item of official concern.

How Rogers, Beshear and their appointees on SOAR's executive committee handle this issue will be a test of their stated commitment to a process that serves the public at large, not entrenched interests. There are already concerns that elected officials largely ignored the working groups' listening sessions, raising questions about the effort's long-term effectiveness and whether the county courthouses will be part of the solution or part of the problem.

On a larger scale, there are big Republican cross-currents. Comer didn't attend SOAR's first big meeting in Pikeville last December; Rogers was conspicuous by his absence at Comer's Appalachia Proud events in his district three months later; and his political organization appears to be supporting Heiner. Comer and Rogers fell out partly over his advocacy of industrial hemp, a cause that Paul adopted and McConnell brought to fruition by getting authorization for experimental projects in this year's Farm Bill.

The hemp deal illustrated how McConnell can still make things happen, despite the lack of budget earmarks on which he and Rogers long relied. If he's re-elected and becomes Senate majority leader (both more likely than not), he will be in an even better position to make things happen with Rogers, who will be chairman of the House Appropriations Committee for two more years. Both have pledged to wage war on Obama's coal and climate policies; let's hope that doesn't blind McConnell to the need to look beyond the black rock.

Al Cross, former C-J political reporter, is director of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues and associate professor in the University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Telecommunications. His opinions are his own, not UK's.