Quote (Landmine @ Nov 30 2020 09:30pm)
Are you acting like the war on coal that was done during Obama’s era with joe Biden as Vice President wouldn’t be a run off of the same policies? I understand that republicans hold the senate and I’ve even stated on this forum that joe Biden will be a lame duck president. I said a hit on coal could crash the market replying to a meme that ghot posted. Which there’s more truths in that photo than most will acknowledge.
1. by obama era are you referring to the 2015 Coal Ash Disposal Rule?
1a. If so, how specifically do you think this affects job numbers? shouldnt increased disposal jobs offset some of the mining loss jobs? and in any case arent increases and decreases in raw coal mined subject to very little job changes, as most of the processes are automated and there is a very real floor of coal needed to keep most of these people employed based on the # of plants still running coal?
2. the head of the EPA is approved by Senate, im sure coal will be a forefront of the questioning and a semi-friendly coal Administrator will be chosen.
3. I dont think hits to coal will cause a crash in the market with the strength we have in online giants like amazon, streaming entertainment giants like Netflix, and tech giants abound. Additionally Energy giants in the industry have been diversifying their business for years. Although with Trump winning and promising to deregulate im sure they slowed their time tables, they just got screwed by losing 4 years, so will take a hit.
I'd add that a large part of the reason we have the clean coal technology we have is due to regulation and more importantly threat of regulation. without EPA emmisions regulation i'd argue coal would have died out on a faster timeline than it currently is, and the technology created due to regulation caused a large uptick under Trump because we had better coal with lower regulations. meaning better coal with slightly more regulations wont be earth shattering, even if it does cause a downtick in overall usage and mining.
lastly, in 2015 when HRC fumbled the WV miner question, i said she was a fool. all she had to do was promise job replacement programs in areas already plundered by coal jobloss decades old to offset coal regulations. yes solar, wind, etc are the future. but we can direct where those future technologies are made with tax incentives. we dont need a solar panel plant in a NYC suburb, we need it in bumfuck WV. this type of conservative progressive clean energy could stop the Trump wing of disenfranchised blue collar workers in its tracks, but they're too snooty.