Kentucky Senate Watch: No, I Love Coal More!

Photo by Gage Skidmore, <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gageskidmore/4099665312/">via Flickr</a>.


Kentucky Repubican Senate candidate Rand Paul has been busy showing his pro-coal bonafides in recent weeks. Last month, he told Details that mountaintop removal coal mining isn’t so bad, really; actually, it creates “enhanced value” for Appalachian land and just needs some rebranding. Now he’s going way out of his way to make it clear that he loves coal.

In a speech over the weekend, Paul targeted the Obama administration on coal, arguing that the president “cares nothing about Kentucky and cares even less about Kentucky coal.” He continued, as one might expect, with an assault on the Environmental Protection Agency’s efforts to regulate mountaintop removal and the Mine Safety and Health Administration’s efforts to protect workers:

“We have a president who is forcing the EPA down our throats,” Paul said. “Even without changing the rules, the EPA is stifling the permit process, and people (are) out of work here because of the president and his policies.

“With all due respect, Mr. President, you’re wrong, and you need to stay out of Kentucky affairs. And you need to keep the EPA out of our affairs because we need jobs, and we’re not going to get jobs with a busybody EPA that’s in our way.”

Paul made overtures to coal families by proclaiming himself a coal ally who would “defend your way of life.” The Bowling Green eye doctor has come under attack from members of the United Mine Workers who recently said they were alarmed by Paul’s suggestions in a magazine interview that elected officials in Washington shouldn’t be setting coal mining rules.

Opposition to any form of regulation is, of course, Paul’s standard operating procedure. But it’s worth noting that not all that long ago, his primary opponent was targeting him as not pro-coal enough, running ads that featured a clip of a Paul stump speech on behalf of his father’s presidential campaign in which he called coal “a very dirty form of energy.” So much for that.

Meanwhile, Paul’s Democratic opponent in the race, Attorney General Jack Conway, is far from anti-coal. He’s challenged the EPA’s conclusion that greenhouse gases threaten human health, and his spokesman has made it clear that Conway “opposes any and all cap-and-trade legislation.”

It may be a tight race, but one thing’s clear: Coal will win big in Kentucky this November.

More Mother Jones reporting on Climate Desk

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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