Coal company to lay off 156 workers in Utah, Ill.

ST. LOUIS (AP) - A coal producer owned by a longtime critic of President Barack Obama's energy policies will lay off nearly 160 workers at Illinois and Utah mines, blaming the freshly re-elected president for a "war on coal."

Ohio-based Murray Energy Corp. said in a statement supplied Friday to The Associated Press that it would give pink slips to 102 workers at its West Ridge Mine in Utah and 54 at its underground mine in the southern Illinois town of Galatia. Both mines are run by Murray Energy subsidiaries.

Murray did not specify when layoffs will take place or the total number of workers at each affected site. The company refused an email interview request, saying only that "unfortunately, we will be forced to make even more layoffs, none of which we want."

The announcement's timing — just days after Obama's victory over Republican Mitt Romney — was anything but coincidental. Robert Murray, the company's chairman, CEO and founder, had backed Romney, who proposed rolling back some restrictions on power-plant emissions and positioned himself as a supporter of the coal industry.

"The American people have made their choice," Murray, a day after the election, told about 50 employees during a prayer, a text of which was provided to the AP by the company. Lamenting the country's direction and insisting "the takers outvoted the producers," Murray asked for God's forgiveness "for the decisions that we are now forced to make to preserve the very existence of any of the enterprises that you have helped us build."

Murray's statement Friday, which insisted that the coal industry "is being destroyed," said U.S. coal production this year could plunge by hundreds of millions of tons, and that the Obama administration's energy policies will lead to the closure of scores of U.S. coal-fired power plants by 2014.

The Environmental Protection Agency has proposed tighter limits on mercury, sulfur dioxide and other pollutants that would make it more expensive for utilities to burn coal, a major source of those emissions. The EPA has also proposed limiting the amount of carbon dioxide that new power plants can emit.

Neither would specifically bar coal-fired power plants, but experts say it would be nearly impossible to build an affordable new coal plant that could meet the limits. The proposals, some which had begun under George W. Bush's administration, wouldn't affect coal plants now in use or being built.

Obama, who during his 2008 campaign said builders of new coal-powered plants will go bankrupt from emissions standards he would enact, now espouses an "all of the above" energy strategy that includes coal.

"The president has made clear that coal has an important role to play in our energy economy today and it will in the future, which is why this administration has worked to make sure that moving forward we can continue to rely on a broad range of domestic energy sources from oil and gas, to wind and solar, to nuclear, as well as clean coal," Clark Stevens, a White House spokesman, said recently.

What's happening in the coal industry is more than a seasonal slump or a response to new regulations; even coal executives admit it's a fundamental shift. Many utilities have switched from coal to cheaper natural gas for electricity generation, pushing up coal stockpiles at power plants and forcing mining companies to sharply cut production.

When St. Louis-based Patriot Coal filed for bankruptcy in July, it didn't mention a war on coal but cited "a major correction" in the industry and "new realities in the market," including fierce, sustainable competition of natural gas. But St. Louis-based Arch Coal Inc. blamed market pressures and a challenging regulatory backdrop in its June announcement it would lay off about 750 Appalachian coal workers.

A recent rebound in natural gas prices has buoyed hopes among coal producers that power plants increasingly will shift back to coal, though they say pressure on the industry could persist well into next year.

Murray Energy was the parent company of a Utah coal mine that collapsed in 2007, killing six miners and three members of a rescue team. Earlier this year, Murray Energy affiliates paid nearly $1 million in safety fines for the disaster and settled a criminal case for $500,000.

What's happening in the coal industry is more than a seasonal slump or a response to new regulations; even coal executives admit it's a fundamental shift. Many utilities have switched from coal to cheaper natural gas for electricity generation, pushing up coal stockpiles at power plants and forcing mining companies to sharply cut production.

wants2laugh wrote:my thing is, fine u changed the policy. Now WHAT are you doing to encourage Clean power? Did u offer the coal companies a chance to build wind mills are low interest rate loans? Or give them some sort of incentive to switch to something else? NO? then u did nothing but limit business in our country, and make us more dependent on foreign countries for oil.

In PA, they upped the emissions standards for car inspections. It cost my family's auto body shop $50,000 for the new emissions machine in order to do state inspections. Three years later, and still owing $20,000 on the machine... the laws were made stricter. The NEW NEW machine would cost $100,000... and the one that we still owed the money on was now worthless. We couldnt afford it, and were no longer able to do the inspection, which resulted in job loss. The same happened to a friend in NJ. Had someone said, "We'll give u a tax break to offset the balance of the old machine, plus give u a low interest loan for the new one" Three jobs might have been saved.

Now someone might say "Three jobs is nothing"... but add up three jobs in unemployment, welfare, medicaid, food stamps etc... and three jobs is an asset not a deficit.

Politicians have no vision.

Forgiveness Man wrote: smh

Earlier this month, Mitt Romney was welcomed for a campaign event at the Century Mine in Beallsville, Ohio, by hundreds of coal workers and their families. Now many of the mine's workers are saying they were forced to give up a day's worth of pay to attend the event, and they feared they might be fired if they didn’t, according to local news radio WWVA.

The claims have been mostly denied by Rob Moore, Chief Financial Officer of Murray Energy Company, which owns the mine. He acknowledges that workers weren’t paid that day but says no one was made to attend the event. Well, kind of.

"Our managers communicated to our workforce that the attendance at the Romney event was mandatory, but no one was forced to attend," he told local news radio WWVA, which has received several emails from workers claiming that the company records names of workers that don't attend those types of events.

The company's interest in having its employees show support for Romney may be a result of its CEO's close ties with the presumptive Republican nominee. In May, Romney teamed up with Murray's CEO Bob Murray for a fundraising event in West Virginia. And Murray's made no secret of his support for the Republican party, previously backing Rick Perry.

In addition, his company has donated more than $900,000 to Republican candidates in the last two years, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Murray, who is also a climate-change denier, has been an outspoken critic of President Obama’s stance on coal. That view may be why Moore told WWVA that having employees attend the Romney event “was in the best interest of anyone that's related to the coal industry in this area or the entire country."

This isn’t the first time workers have been frustrated by a Mitt Romney campaign event either. Employees of Sensata Technologies, a company owned by Romney’s previous employer Bain Capital, protested a campaign event earlier this month in Bettendorf, Iowa. In that case, Romney didn't respond to questions about what he would do to prevent their jobs being outsourced, The Rock River Times reports.

Over at the New Republic, Alec MacGillis reports on the extent to which Ohio coal baron Bob Murray pressures his mining employees to underwrite the campaigns of GOP candidates, including presidential nominee Mitt Romney.

A vocal proponent of the dubious "war on coal" mantra, the 72-year-old CEO of Murray Energy is one of Romney's biggest boosters in the must-win state of Ohio. Murray garnered national headlines in August after some of his miners lost pay in exchange for the opportunity to appear at a Romney campaign event. Attendance apparently wasn't optional.

But according to MacGillis, Murray's employees have been pressured to donate much more to Republican office seekers than just their time. Encouraged by management, Murray workers have ponied up more than $120,000 to help elect Romney. MacGillis writes:

The accounts of two sources who have worked in managerial positions at the firm, and a review of letters and memos to Murray employees, suggest that coercion may also explain Murray staffers’ financial support for Romney. Murray, it turns out, has for years pressured salaried employees to give to the Murray Energy political action committee (PAC) and to Republican candidates chosen by the company. Internal documents show that company officials track who is and is not giving. The sources say that those who do not give are at risk of being demoted or missing out on bonuses, claims Murray denies.

According to documents obtained by TNR, Murray reprimands employees who fail to donate to his chosen candidates, going so far as to disseminate spreadsheets showing how much or how little his different subsidiaries are giving.

Until his recent influence on national politics, Murray was perhaps best known for his role in the Crandall Canyon Mine disaster, in which six miners and three rescuers died at a Murray property in Utah in 2007. Murray blamed the tragedy on an earthquake; experts disagreed.

As HuffPost reported last year, Murray has enlisted disgraced former Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) in lobbying against tighter safety regulations at mining operations.

Forgiveness Man wrote:And this is only the beginning. Lots of jobs will be doing a vanishing act in the coming months. smh