The Decline of Big Coal

The dead and trapped Crandall Canyon miners are putting renewed attention on the massive number of safety violations by Big Coal, and the gallingly lax enforcement by the Bush Administration.

But I also suspect that Robert Murray’s blustery, and ultimately ineffectual, attempt at crisis management PR will also weaken Big Coal’s efforts to defeat strong global warming legislation.

Of course, the safety of coal mining has nothing to do with the carbon pollution that comes from coal burning.

Yet as soon as disaster struck, and the media came, Murray sensed that the fate of the whole coal industry was on the line.

He started one of his first news conferences by defending the industry and lashing out at global warming legislation before updating the public on the status of the trapped miners:

...my name is Bob Murray. I'm the founder, chairman, president of a company called Murray Energy Corporation. I built the company starting with a mortgaged home; the United States of America's a great country. And today we have 3,300 employees in five states.

We produce a product that is essential to the standard of living of every American, because our coal produces 52 percent of the energy in America today and it is the lowest cost energy, costing one-third to one-fourth the cost of energy from natural gas, nuclear and renewable resources.

And without coal to manufacture our electricity, our products will not compete in the global marketplace against foreign countries, because our manufacturers depend on coal, low-cost electricity and people on fixed incomes will not be able to pay their electric bills.

And every one of these global warming bills that has been introduced in Congress today to eliminate the coal industry [] will increase your electric rates four to five-fold. So we are an essential industry.

Republican donor Murray took control of the public information effort, shunting the federal government (and its legal responsibilities) aside. Controlling information can have its self-serving benefits, but Murray’s attempts at puffing up his safety record and blaming the disaster on a non-existent earthquake have clearly backfired.

As a result, his credibility is shot. And as someone known as the “King of Coal,” Murray reflects on the whole industry.

The spectacle Murray created simply reminds us that industry executives often mislead the public to put their self-interest ahead of the public interest.

Big Coal is already on its heels, as more and more realize that coal contributes to the climate crisis. For example, the coal lobby failed to get Congress to back subsidies for liquid coal fuel. And the weakening of the coal lobby is leading to calls for stronger action.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced opposition to any new coal-fired power plant anywhere in the world. November’s Step It Up citizen action will also call for such a ban. Al Gore recently prodded young Americans to physically block the construction of new plants, after calling for a moratorium on coal power plants that don’t capture and sequester carbon pollution.

Big Coal CEOs will cry that reducing our reliance on coal will destroy jobs and wreck the economy, but thanks to Murray, their words will carry less weight.

In reality, no one is calling for mass firings. Even Grist’s David Roberts, who coined the phrase “coal is the enemy of the human race,” and wants to phase it out over a 50-75 year period, acknowledges that “we'll be using it one way or another for the foreseeable future.”

But we can’t put our tax dollars into expanding a dirty industry. We can invest in renewable energy, green-collar jobs and carbon sequestration – a comprehensive clean energy strategy which will strengthen our economy, as well as make sure we have an economy to strengthen.

Murray thought he could use the attention from the disaster to put a clean face on a dirty industry. Instead, he has made it painfully clear that Big Coal is not who we should turn to when crafting a clean energy future.

Note: I've edited the post to remove my ignorance of the proper use of Greek mythological references.

Views expressed on this page are those of the authors and not necessarily those of Campaign for America's Future or Institute for America's Future