Miners protest EPA; say Obama' s proposed clean air rules are costing Central Appalachia jobs

More than 300 mine workers and their family members rallied outside the Environmental Protection Agency's headquarters in Washington on Tuesday "to protest a proposal to limit carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants that they said would kill jobs in Appalachia," Zack Colman reports for Washington Examiner. (Examiner photo by Graeme Jennings: Protestors on Tuesday at EPA headquarters)

The rules, proposed by the EPA and the Obama Administration, seek to cut carbon-dioxide emissions by 30 percent by 2030 from existing power plants based on emission levels from 2005, a move that protestors said will result in lost jobs in Appalachia, Colman writes. "Many of the protesters were reliable Democratic voters who said they were venting frustration not with their party, but rather with an Obama administration that they say is pummeling their communities with too-stringent regulations."

Coal production in Central Appalachia "peaked in 1997 at 290 million short tons," Colman writes. "It hit 133 million short tons last year, according to data from the federal U.S. Energy Information Administration. EIA says production will fall below 100 million short tons for good in 2023, dropping to 80.5 million short tons in 2040." (Read more)