March 21, 2018
Lexington Herald Leader
Congress should renew a tax on coal companies that supports medical treatment for miners disabled by black lung and expires at the end of this year. A vicious resurgence of the incurable disease gives lawmakers little choice.
March 14, 2018 at 05:32pm
Senator Mitch McConnell is in a position to direct more than $100 million to economic and community development projects in communities hardest hit by the decline in coal mining.
Kentuckians held an action outside his Lexington office today asking him to waste no more time in doing that.
“The time is now to pass the RECLAIM Act,” said Lyndsay Tarus, the Economic Transition Coordinator for the Alliance for Appalachia. “This is a jobs bill. The Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement has estimated that 4,600 jobs could be generated through the RECLAIM Act across the country.
February 7, 2018
The Courier-Journal
The parent of Kentucky's two large utilities – LG&E and KU – has ordered a major reduction in emissions blamed for global warming by eliminating "the bulk" of its coal-burning in the coming years.
February 9, 2018
Lexington Herald Leader
If legislators want to complain about solar subsidies, maybe they need to take a fresh look at coal subsidies. Commission an independent economist to add up all the costs and benefits to the state budget of coal, gas, oil, solar and other energy technologies and compare them. If we’re going to subsidize anything, maybe it should be the future and not the past.
December 11, 2017 at 12:13pm
In the final week of November, KFTC members Russell Oliver, Stanley Sturgill, Henry Jackson, Teri Blanton, Roger Ohlman, Mary Dan Easley and Mary Love converged in Charleston, West Virginia – alongside hundreds of other concerned people – to testify to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) against the agency’s proposed repeal of the Clean Power Plan.
“Now that we have cleaner, safer and cheaper ways to generate energy, the only question should be: how can we create more of those new jobs right here and right now in Appalachia? I know this because not only have I lived it, I’m still trying my best to keep living it,” said Stanley Sturgill of Harlan County, a retired coal miner and KFTC member.
September 14, 2017
The Courier-Journal
Moving away from natural gas might sound radical, but it’s not unrealistic – and there are promising ways to work toward that goal in Kentucky.
September 7, 2017
Inside Climate News
RETIRED COAL MINER BETHEL BROCK had to fight for 14 years to win his federal black lung claim. One may think that Mr. Brock's legal fight is rare, but it is not. His story is common among Appalachian coal miners.
August 25, 2017
The Courier-Journal
People in Appalachian Kentucky are dying at rates significantly higher than national averages.
We need to better understand why, through scientific research, to begin curing the health crises in the region.
August 23, 2017 at 02:49am
President Trump has stopped a federal study looking at the relationship between strip mining and human health. Despite that, a planned hearing took place in Hazard on August 21 and in Lexington on August 22. Jeff Chapman-Crane read the following that he and Sharman, his wife, had written together.
May 16, 2017
Smithsonian Magazine
More than 76,000 miners have died from black lung disease since 1968, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor. And now there's a resurgence of this deadly disease that should have been wiped out decades ago.
