This conversation originally aired in the April 27, 2025 episode of Inside Appalachia.
Since taking office, President Donald Trump has slashed thousands of federal jobs and used executive orders to shake up federal regulation of energy production — including coal.
Leann Ray is editor-in-chief of West Virginia Watch, a nonprofit outlet that covers news in the state. She recently published an op-ed that wraps in several of these federal actions regarding coal.
Inside Appalachia Host Mason Adams spoke with Ray.
Adams: Your op-ed piece in West Virginia Watch is headlined, “It’s time for West Virginia leaders to be friends of coal miners, not coal.” That headline’s a play on Friends of Coal, a 501(c)(6) nonprofit trade group for the coal industry. Of course, a lot of people know it more from its stickers than its work behind the scenes. You make the case that elected officials go out of their way to be “friends of coal.” What do you mean by that?
Ray: To be honest with you, you were talking about the bumper stickers. That’s all I knew from Friends of Coal, seeing that sticker growing up, and I actually didn’t know what it meant. I had to look it up when I was writing this commentary to find out that it was actually a nonprofit group. West Virginia’s elected officials, they always talk about how they want to help coal. They turn their noses at renewable energy like solar and wind power. They see no problem with loosening environmental regulations, even those regulations are there to protect West Virginians’ health in order to allow more coal to be mined.
Right now in the West Virginia State Legislature, they’re talking about a bill to create microgrids to power data centers. In the initial version of the bill requested by Gov. [Partrick] Morrisey, there are provisions meant to support the state’s coal industry. I believe it said it would have required electric utilities with coal fired plants to operate at a 69% capacity and hold a 45-day supply of coal on hand at all times. It turns out, most coal-fired plants in the state operate on an average of 40% capacity and a stockpile of a 30-day supply of coal. The power companies have said in response to that, it’d be difficult to meet those standards, and doing so would raise rates for existing electric customers in the state. West Virginians are already struggling with utility rates. We hear about Appalachian Power wanting to raise their rates all the time, and honestly, West Virginians can’t afford another rate hike, especially one just to help the coal industry.
Adams: Partway through your op-ed, you flip this idea of politicians being “friends of coal.” I’m going to read a quote here: “They say they want to stand up for coal. In reality, they’re only standing up for the coal mine owners to have less regulations so they can make more money. And let’s be honest — coal mine owners in West Virginia show all the time they don’t care about coal miners.” Can you elaborate more on that?
Ray: Sure. The two biggest examples of this are Don Blankenship and Jim justice. Blankenship was the CEO of Massey Energy at the time of the Upper Big Branch mine disaster, where 29 miners died. After that accident, MSHA issued Massey 369 citations and orders, including an unprecedented 21 flagrant violations, which carry the most serious civil penalties under the law. When Blankenship appeared on HD Media’s “Outside the Echo Chamber” a couple years ago, in a now-deleted episode, the host asked him, “If you had done anything differently that day, what would you have done?” He said he would have quit before the disaster —not that he would have fixed any of the safety issues or done anything to prevent the accident. He would have only saved himself, not those 29 men. That, to me, is someone who obviously does not care about his coal miners. He cares about the money and himself.
And then our U.S. Sen. Jim Justice, he has a long history of not paying mine safety fines. His family owns nearly two dozen coal companies, and they owe more than $400,000 in delinquent mine safety fines that they racked up between 2014 and 2019. Last year, his family agreed to pay those fines. And this year, they said, “No, for real this time, we’re going to pay those.” And they’ve agreed to pay it by May 1, I think. To rack up that much money when they originally owed over $5 million debt and delinquent mine safety fines? That’s a lot of safety violations. If you cared about your miners and your employees, you would be fixing these issues and not racking up more and more fines.
Adams: Since President Trump took office, his administration has announced it’s closing 33 Mine Safety and Health Administration offices, fired hundreds of workers at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, which conducts black lung research and screening, and just this week, announced it was going to delay the implementation of a rule intended to crack down on silica dust, which is a contributing factor to black lung. At the same time, Trump also signed four executive orders intended to prop up coal-fired power plants and coal production. So what does this all mean for the coal industry in West Virginia and for its miners?
Ray: Well, it might lead to more coal production, but it’s going to leave miners much more vulnerable. NIOSH, out of Morgantown, [West Virginia,] did free mobile black lung testing across Appalachia. Talking to the union representative there, it sounds like everyone at NIOSH is going to be done by June, so that mobile testing unit is gone. The union official also told West Virginia Watch that there’s no one else in government who does occupational safety and health, and they do the research to make everyone’s job safer. So it’s going to leave coal miners in just a much more vulnerable position. [U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore] Capito, Justice and [U.S. Rep. Carol Miller, they all put out press releases saying they supported Trump’s executive orders that are meant to revive the coal production.
One of those orders removed Biden’s administration’s environmental regulations, because Trump said it slows the approval of new mining projects. Well, yeah, that’s for the health and safety of everyone. It should slow it down. You should be looking at, if you mine in this area, how is this going to affect the neighborhoods nearby? How is it going to affect the water? You want to slow that down. You don’t want to just open up mine production somewhere where it can hurt the environment and people.
Another one of his executive orders directed the U.S. Justice Department to block states from enforcing their own regulations on coal this administration. I mean, they already show they don’t really seem to care about the environment or people’s health. So, it could lead to many more mine disasters like Upper Big Branch, obviously, more cases of black lung with the silica dust rule being delayed. That was something that was really going to help take down the number of black lung cases. And we don’t have that free mobile unit anymore. I don’t know, other than the mobile unit, if they’re going out on their own. I know, personally for me, if I think something’s wrong with my health, I might put it off. I might not want to go. And I could see people like that being like, “Oh, I don’t I don’t want to know. I’m fine. I’m fine.” And when they had that free mobile unit coming, that was something where they could go and get tested, and now that’s something that’s just not going to exist anymore.
Adams: So when you say leaders should be” friends of coal miners, not coal,” what do you envision for that? What does that mean for elected officials in Congress and beyond?
Ray: People seem to think that they can only do one thing. They can only support the production of coal. But they can do that at the same time as supporting coal miners. I honestly think that all of our delegation, they need to kind of grow a backbone and say, “We need to take care of our coal miners.” These brave people are going in these mines, risking their lives every day. We need to do everything we can to make sure there are regulations to keep them safe, that there’s research that can help them with things with black lung, that they are being tested. Actually, Sen. Capito, she did speak out about the cuts at NIOSH, and she was the only one. I didn’t hear anything from Miller or [U.S. Rep. Riley] Moore or Justice.
I understand our lawmakers think coal is the past and the present and the future of West Virginia, but it’s a fossil fuel. It’s nonrenewable. Once it’s gone, it’s gone. They can promote the production of coal and at the same time fight for the safety of our miners. There’s no reason that they can’t do both. I can’t see Justice doing that as a coal mine owner, but honestly, he should be the one saying, “We got to take care of our coal miners.” We’ve got to make sure that there are safety regulations out there for them. They’re in there mining this coal that’s helping with our industry. They always say, “Coal keeps the lights on.” They’re getting this coal to keep our lights on. We need to be making sure we’re doing everything for them to make sure that they’re safe and that they’re healthy.
