The announcement that 1,200 coal-mining jobs have been eliminated across central Appalachia has sparked renewed cries that Obama administration policies are crippling domestic-energy production and jobs — and is already factoring into the 2012 presidential race.
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.”
Fox News has the full article
