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

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate