News of KFTC and our issues
Skills, Wages and Rural America
August 1, 2012
Why are incomes lower in rural communities than in central cities? Three economists say it's all a matter of skills.
Reaction to federal judge's ruling against the EPA
August 1, 2012
KFTC Member Rick Handshoe's reaction to the federal judge's ruling against the EPA.
Court Rules Against EPA on Water Quality
August 1, 2012
KFTC member Teri Blanton is quoted in this story about the disappointing court ruling against the EPA's water quality guidance.
Nine Kentucky power plants violating sulfur dioxide rules
July 26, 2012
Some of Kentucky's largest working-class communities are being put at risk by power plants that are violating national clean air standards, according to a new report from the Sierra Club and the Kentucky Environmental Foundation.
Austerity's Big Winners Prove To Be Wall Street and The Wealthy
July 23, 2012
The poor and middle classes have shouldered by far the heaviest burdens of the global political obsession with austerity policies over the past three years. In the United States [and Kentucky], budget cuts have forced states to reduce education, public transportation, affordable housing and other social services. But the austerity game also has winners.
Study finds toxins from mountaintop coal mining sites
July 20, 2012
The U.S. Geological Survey has found high levels of toxic compounds in soil and water around mountaintop-removal mining sites in central Appalachia, a potentially groundbreaking finding with human health consequences.
MSHA: 19 miners died in first half of 2012
July 19, 2012
During the first half of 2012, 19 miners died in work-related accidents at the nation's mines. "While 19 is the second-lowest number of mining deaths recorded in mining midyear, we know that these deaths are preventable," said Joseph A. Main, assistant secretary of labor for mine safety and health.
Editorial | Ex-felons deserve voting rights, too
July 18, 2012
Our criminal justice system punishes those who break the law, and, once their debt to society is paid, allows them to reenter the community. Many of these ex-felons manage to stay clean, get jobs and raise families, like anyone else. Yet in Kentucky, they remained permanently banned from a fundamental American activity: Voting.
Republican Lawmakers Seek To Block Funding On Black Lung Regulation
July 17, 2012
Republicans on the House Appropriations Committee – chaired by Kentucky Rep. Hal Rogers – have inserted into a broad appropriations bill language that would block funding for a Labor Department effort to reduce the occurrence of black lung, the disease that afflicts coal miners exposed to excessive mine dust.
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