XPost: sci.engr.mining, alt.global-warming, alt.politics.obama
XPost: sac.politics

Just as soon as President Donald Trump signed those executive
orders rolling back President Obama's emissions rules, a
cavalcade of experts immediately chimed in with hard-edged
comments about how "useless" and "misleading" the whole process
was.

Here are just a few of the headlines oozing with know-it-all
certainty and elitist environmental snobbery that had all the
subtlety of a slap across the face:

The fake war on coal: Trump moves to dismantle U.S. climate
rules (Salon)

Trump's Pro-Coal Orders Are Doomed to Fail (Time)

Donald Trump ends 'war on coal' by declaring war on breathable
air (Vanity Fair)

The implicit and often explicit message in these and many other
pieces is that President Trump thinks the coal miners are stupid
enough to believe that his executive orders will bring their
jobs back when free market forces like automation and cheaper
natural gas are the real reasons for the industry's contraction.

But when it comes to thinking people are stupid, it's the so-
called experts who seem to be assuming that miners don't know
the truth or at least as much about their own industry as the
folks sitting in newsrooms in New York and Washington, D.C.

Now this doesn't mean those same pundits and experts are wrong
about some of the basic environmental science. Coal has been a
legitimate focus for environmental activists for decades. It is
indeed dirtier and produces more emissions than natural gas,
petroleum, and of course solar and wind power.

It's the demonizing and denigrating of the miners themselves
that is a bridge too far.

To hear the know-it-alls in Washington or even on Wall Street
tell it, the miners and mining companies believe Trump will
"bring their jobs back," and will soon feel betrayed when those
jobs don't come back.

But Coal News Publisher and Managing Editor Bill Reid has
actually spent a lifetime listening to miners and mining
companies. Reid says the miners are a lot more savvy than most
people give them credit for.

"Contrary to popular belief, the modern coal miner is well-
educated and highly experienced in operating multi-million
dollar mining machinery," Reid says. "All they want is a level
playing field without government interference so they can
compete."

The "government interference" part is the key to understanding
everything. The miners know they may lose their jobs to market
forces, they just don't want Washington piling on or speeding up
their economic demise.

The market they can accept; politically-charged policies made to
look like environmental concern they cannot. And they suspect
it's politically-charged chicanery and not legitimate
environmental concern because of the increased political and
financial relationships Democrats have cultivated with
alternative energy companies, lobbyists, and investors. That
includes green investors like Tom Steyer, who spent millions of
his own money on Democratic candidates in 2016 and has become
one of the most influential powers in the party.

And who could blame them for having those concerns after Hillary
Clinton, even during the height of campaign scrutiny last year,
had the temerity to say: "We're going to put a lot of coal
miners and coal companies out of business," during a town hall
event in March. The Clinton campaign later backtracked from that
comment, but the damage was done.

Speaking of the free market, Reid's relative optimism about
preserving or even creating a few more coal jobs is not
unfounded. Warrior Met Coal set its IPO range Monday valuing the
company at $17 to $19, proving there are still investors willing
to put their money in the supposedly dead commodity. And even
natural gas industry leaders admit their prices are not going to
stay low forever, justifying optimism about coal's future
ability to compete at least at some level.

But don't those libertarian, accept-the-market-results miners
want government help when it's offered? Like perhaps the big tax
breaks and credits solar and even the regular oil companies
receive? That's another misconception. When it comes to the
government, it's not that they expect Washington to stay out of
things completely, they just want a seat at the table.

William Raney, president of the West Virginia Coal Miners
Association, spoke out about this at the height of the
presidential election last summer. Raney insisted that miners
and mining companies had been allowed no input at all in the
formulation of the Obama administration's environmental policies.

Whether Raney is referring to the fact that no coal lobbyists
made a visit to the Obama White House or the simple fact that
President Obama's coal curbing regulations came in the form of
executive orders and not Congressional legislation, it seems
like he has a point. Miners want to work with government just
like everyone else, or at least as much as many of the nation's
still less viable industries got to do with the previous
administration. Big difference.

Yet somehow, many in the media who live far from coal country
and probably never visited decided the most important thing to
do in response to the Trump executive orders was to compose
stories about what anyone who can read financial news has known
for decades - that the coal industry has been shrinking mostly
because of natural gas and automation. That's not helpful.

What is helpful is finding out about the educated opinions and
concerns of thousands of American workers in an industry that is
vital for our daily energy needs. Of course, listening to
legitimate voices before enacting powerful economic rules is
what democracy and representative government are all about. And
in that context, it's decidedly anti-democratic to dance on an
industry's grave instead of giving its representatives a seat at
the table while it still produces crucially needed goods,
services and jobs.

So no, President Trump cannot prevent the coal industry's
demise. That will likely happen over the next century... or two.
But he and his new policies can ensure that it dies of natural
causes and not a mob-induced euthanasia.

Commentary by Jake Novak, CNBC.com senior columnist. Follow him
on Twitter @jakejakeny.

http://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/05/trump-isnt-betraying-coal-miners- commentary.html

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