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McConnell: Coal jobs a 'private sector activity'

Joseph Gerth
@Joe_Gerth

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell hedged on Friday about when and if Republicans would be able to bring coal mining jobs to Kentucky, saying that is a "private sector activity."

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell speaks in Louisville following big Republican wins in 2016 elections.

The issue has been a key campaign tool for Republicans who have accused President Barack Obama of waging a "war on coal." President-elect Donald Trump promised during the campaign that he could save the coal industry in America.

"Obama has decimated the coal industry, and we're going to bring the coal industry back,” Trump said at a speech in Louisville in March. “The coal industry is going to make a very big comeback.”

But asked at a press conference at the McConnell Center at the University of Louisville if the GOP would be able to restore the industry that has shed jobs here and in other coal-mining states, McConnell demurred.

"I certainly would like to see the war on coal come to an end," he said in a 20-minute press conference. "As I've said repeatedly over the last few years, the war on coal was not a result of anything Congress passed, there was no legislation. This was all executive orders or regulations that the president was involved in, unilaterally, on his own."

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The industry has been losing jobs for three decades and those losses accelerated under Obama, in part because of new environmental regulations, but more importantly, because of cheap natural gas prices.

In 1985, there were 173,000 coal mining jobs in the United States, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics. In October of this year, that number had fallen to 53,000.

Eastern Kentucky has been especially hard hit because the easily-obtained coal is gone and it costs much more to extract it from the ground there.

"We are going to be presenting to the president a variety of options that could end this assault," McConnell said. "Whether that immediately brings business back, that's hard to tell because this is a private sector activity."

McConnell, however, credited the issue of coal with helping turn the election in Republicans' favor in Kentucky state House races and, nationally, in Ohio, which has a coal mining industry. It also may have helped Trump win in Pennsylvania, where coal is mined and where Republicans won a presidential contest for the first time since 1988.

Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, speaking at a town hall meeting in March, made a comment that appears to have cost her and the Democrats votes in coal country.

"I'm the only candidate which has a policy about how to bring economic opportunity using clean renewable energy as the key into coal country. Because we're going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business, right?" she said when asked how she would help coal communities.

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Republicans edited out the first part of her comment and replayed over and over the words, "Because we're going to put a lot of coal miners out of business, right?"

McConnell said that statement was "certainly helpful" for Republicans.

"In our state, in southeast Ohio and in West Virginia ... If you look at what happened to (Greg Stumbo) the speaker of the House in Kentucky, and others Democratic representatives in areas that used to vote overwhelmingly for Democrats, I don't think there's any question that it was helpful."

McConnell said he isn't concerned about anti-Trump protests that have taken place in Louisville and across the nation.

He noted the frequent protests in Lafayette Park, across the street from the White House. "Going back to the beginning of this country, we’ve had a pretty open ability to complain about whatever you want to and it's about as American as apple pie," he said. "And people are free to express themselves and I don’t think we should be alarmed by it."

Reporter Joseph Gerth can be reached at (502) 582-4702.