Massey Energy boss is cool with being the villain

Massey Energy Co. Chief Executive Officer Don Blankenship has long been one of the most outspoken critics of climate-change legislation and loudest voices on the pro-coal side of energy debates, but his strong positions haven't led him to spend much money on lobbying efforts. "I don’t believe you can change the behavior of politicians by asking them to vote differently very often, particularly when you are viewed as having a personal interest in the issue," Blankenship told Jim Snyder of The Hill, which covers Congress. "I think you have to take it to the public."

Massey Energy, the largest coal producer in Central Appalachia, spends "next to nothing on lobbying of its own," Snyder reports, but is a member of groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which have large lobbying budgets. "I’ve never walked into a senator’s office, told him what my view was, and had him change his view, so I don’t tend to spend a lot of my time doing that," Blankenship told Snyder. Blankenship said when legislators vote against the public will they lose their next election anyway.

Blankenship reasserted his belief that global warming is not a man-made threat, but instead a natural cyclical process. When asked if he thought the "train had left the station" on the politically reality of global warming, Blankenship responded by repeating a lesson he recently told a group of students in West Virginia. "People talk about character being what you do when no one else is looking," he told Snyder. "But the truth of the matter is character is doing that which is unpopular if it’s right, even if it causes you to be vilified." (Read more)