Published: January 16, 2018 |

Robert Murray, center, CEO of Ohio-based Murray Energy, with miners Dave Canning, left, and Mike Glassom near Huntington, Utah.
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In the early days of the Trump administration, the head of one of America’s largest coal companies sent a four-page “action plan” to the White House calling for rollbacks of Obama-era environmental and mine safety regulations.

“We have listed our suggested actions in order of priority,” Robert “Bob” Murray, the chairman and CEO of Ohio-based Murray Energy, wrote in his March 1 letter to Vice President Mike Pence. “We are available to assist you and your administration in any way that you request.”

An Associated Press review of the memo shows that Murray, an early campaign supporter of Donald Trump and major GOP political donor, has gotten about half the items on his wish list. They include pulling the U.S. out of the Paris climate accord and revoking the Clean Power Plan, President Barack Obama’s effort to limit planet-warming emissions from coal-fired power plants.

Murray has spoken widely about his policy priorities in the intervening months, but a copy of his four-page plan became public last week after it was obtained by Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and first reported by the New York Times.

Under Trump, the Mine Safety and Health Administration has also moved to reconsider rules meant to protect miners from breathing coal and rock dust —the main cause of black lung disease — and diesel exhaust.

Other Murray priorities, such as eliminating federal tax credits for wind turbines and solar panels, have languished, however. The renewable energy tax breaks were largely retained in the final Republican-drafted tax plan the president signed last month.

And despite Trump’s campaign pledges to put scores of coal miners back to work by ending what he and Murray have derided as Obama’s “war on coal,” the administration’s regulatory rollback has thus far had modest economic benefits.

Only about 500 coal mining jobs were added in Trump’s first year, bringing the total to about 50,900 nationally, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics. The nation’s utilities have continued to shutter coal-fired plants in favor of those burning natural gas made cheaper and more abundant by new drilling technologies.

In an interview with the AP on Wednesday, Murray said Trump and his appointees have overall done a great job helping his industry. He specifically credited Environmental Protection Administrator Scott Pruitt and Energy Secretary Rick Perry with being “stars.”

Murray said he is still hopeful that Pruitt will follow through on the second-highest priority item on his 2017 action plan: revoking the EPA’s 2009 finding that emitting greenhouse gases in the atmosphere threatens public health. The finding provided the legal underpinnings for Obama’s efforts to regulate carbon emissions as pollutants.

Source: Associated Press

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