In rejecting the extension of coal tax credits Friday, Governor Terry McAuliffe noted that the number of coal miners employed in Virginia has tumbled from 11,100 in 1988 to less than 3,000 in 2015.
At one time — the late 70s and early 80s, as I recall — coal mining employed more than 20,000. Since then, many jobs have been lost to automation, and more to declining production. Coal has been mined in Virginia for more than 100 years, and all the thick, easily accessible seams have been tapped out; it’s not easy extracting coal profitably from three-foot-thick coal seams. In the past decade came the fracking boom, which allowed natural gas to displace coal in the utility market, as well as the Environmental Protection Agency crackdown on mercury and other toxic byproducts of coal combustion. The Clean Air Act, assuming it moves forward, likely will be the death knell of steam coal in Virginia, leaving only a handful of mines producing metallurgical coal for steel making.
From 1988 until 2015, McAuliffe said, coal mine operators, electricity generators and other coal-related companies claimed more than $610 million in tax credits. “It would be unwise to spend additional taxpayer dollars on a tax credit that has fallen so short of its intended effectiveness,” stated McAuliffe in a press release.
It seems cruel to kick the coal mining industry when it’s down, but McAuliffe has a point. A 2012 report by the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission (JLARC) found that while the credits had slowed the decline of coal production and employment, both declined at the same or even faster rates than were predicted before the credits were created.
If we want to help the economy of far southwestern Virginia, there are probably better ways to do it. If there are only 3,000 coal mining jobs left, there’s nothing much to save anyway!
Not surprisingly, inhabitants of Southwest Virginia are among the most disaffected and alienated in the state, as can be seen by these two maps from the Stat Chat blog showing the percentage of votes that went for Donald Trump in the Republican primary, and, less lopsidedly, to Bernie Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary.
Buchanan County, in the heart of Virginia’s coalfields gave 70% its votes to Trump in the Republican primary.
Clearly, alienation is not limited to coal miners — it permeates the southern tier of counties across Virginia where local economies traditionally were built around tobacco, textiles, apparel and light manufacturing. Trump voters have been the losers in the world of globalization and the knowledge economy.
I wish I had an answer for what it takes to salvage Southwest Virginia, but I don’t. The Tobacco Indemnification and Community Revitalization Commission has been throwing money at the problem — workforce development and incentives for light manufacturing, mostly — but doesn’t have much to show for it. The region is just too rugged, too isolated, too hard to get around, and too bereft of workers with skills valued in the knowledge economy to attract much investment.
Sadly, the only long-term solution may be the emigration of young people in search of job opportunities elsewhere.
— JAB
