Miners from Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio brought hard hats and harsh words to Washington yesterday to protest proposed acid rain legislation that may cost them their jobs.
They called for action to delay the Clean Air Act and the expected loss of 252,000 jobs nationwide.
Robert Murray, organizer of the 24-hour protest trip and owner of the Ohio Valley Coal Company in Alledonia, Ohio, led 400 people to the steps of the Capitol, the White House and the Environmental Protection Agency.
“Our lives will be destroyed while President George Bush and the Senate leadership … play a game of political one-upmanship to see who can best wear the environmental label,” said Murray.
Murray added that the Clean Air Bill has become “an unfortunate substitute for a national energy policy that eliminates coal as an energy source and will surely increase our dependence on energy imports.”
The Bush clean air proposal calls for industry to reduce sulfur dioxide emissions by 10 million tons by 2000.
While high-sulfur coal use would be halted by 1995, said Murray, the development of clean coal technology could allow its re-introduction by 2000.
“This is bad thinking and bad policy,” said Murray. “You can’t shut down the mines for five years and expect coal-on-demand later on.”
