CLIMATE SUMMIT: Coal Workers, Communities, and the Climate Crisis
Jeremy Richardson is a senior energy analyst in the Climate and Energy program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. Hailing from a third-generation coal mining family in West Virginia, and with more than ten years of experience in climate and energy issues, Richardson focuses on federal climate and energy policy development, specializing in the economics of energy—particularly coal and nuclear power. He has testified before a West Virginia field hearing of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on the importance of economic diversification in Coal Country in the context of the EPA’s Clean Power Plan. In 2007-2008, he was the American Association for the Advancement of Science Roger Revelle Fellow in Global Stewardship. This is an excerpt of his presentation "Supporting Coal Workers & Communities in a Changing Energy Landscape," as part of the Aug. 24, 2021, WV Climate Alliance summit. View the full summit here: youtu.be/-m54X7PVsC0
TRANSCRIPT: Excerpt from the Aug. 24, 2021 "CLIMATE, JOBS and JUSTICE: A Public Forum on West Virginia's Future," sponsored by the West Virginia Climate Alliance. VIEW FULL SUMMIT AT: youtu.be/-m54X7PVsC0
JEREMY RICHARDSON: As Angie mentioned, I do come from West Virginia, just outside of Fairmont. And from a third-generation coal mining family. My brother still works in the mines today. And that has always been the lens through which I've seen the climate issue.
I'll just note, I'm not going to talk about climate change in my presentation, but I'll just note that the Union of Concerned Scientists has done a tremendous amount of research on the impacts of climate change and have a ton of resources on our website. A lot of reports that we've done that have very specific geographical information about extreme heat, for example. A lot of stuff on sea level rise and storm surge, as well. A lot of it's broken down by county, by congressional district. So, if you want to learn more, I can point you in the right direction or you can poke around on our website.
I just would like to talk a little bit about a report that I wrote with the Utility Workers Union of America that was published a few months ago, and really digs into some details about what a 'fair transition' or 'just transition' or 'true transition' looks like for people who are dependent on the fossil fuel industry — and specifically the coal industry — for their economic livelihoods. This is going to be one piece of the puzzle — really looking at supports for the actual workers.
But it's worth noting, and we discuss at length in our report, the resources that are going to be needed for communities, as well. For example, filling the gaps in tax revenue, following the closure of a facility. Making sure that the mines and the coal ash ponds are cleaned up so that, you know communities have a good chance at drawing new industries, building new businesses.
But what I'm going to talk about today is really focused on the worker piece of it. This first slide shows the 462 counties that we identified as coal counties in our report. What we did was we looked at information data from 2015 and 2019, that looked at where there was coal mining; where there were coal mining jobs; and where there were coal fired power plants located. So, it's at two points in time. That's how we define what a coal county is.
The way that we tried to evaluate how dependent a county was on on the coal industry was a list of 10 risk criteria. And you can look into the report for the details of that. But they were sort of roughly around: in the past, did it have a loss in coal mining jobs over that period of 2015 to 2019? Did it see a decline in coal production of at least 10 percent? Were there currently, as of 2019, at least 50 people employed in accounting and coal mining. Very similar for the coal-fired power plants. So, for those counties: was there the retirement of a significant capacity and coal-fired generating capacity, so at least 100 megawatts? Similar for jobs? And then also, is there a known coal plant retirement coming before 2030? And then we had some economic indicators in there, as well, around unemployment and poverty, and poverty rates and so forth.
We have to address, climate change — it's an urgent crisis. And, we also have to figure out how to take care of the people that are going to suffer the consequence of that transition. It's the fair thing to do.
And so what you're looking at here is the you know, which ones pop out on the map? So, of the ten indicators, or was one county, Navajo County, Arizona, that hit nine of the 10 criteria. And so, a couple of things pop out to you that aren't terribly surprising. Central Appalachia has a lot of coal counties, and they tend to have higher risk factors. And you see the Southwest, as I mentioned, particularly Arizona, New Mexico. And then you've seen counties pop out in, in the Powder River Basin, and in Montana, where there's a big coal plant.
So what our report was — and by the way, I just want to give a shout out to the West Virginia Citizens Climate Lobby, who did some of the groundbreaking work on trying to understand and calculate what the cost of supporting dislocated coal workers would be.
What I think is significant about what we've done here is that it's really the first time that I know of that a national environmental group and a labor union have sort of gotten together and collaborated on, you know, saying both things — what I call 'both things.' That we have to address, climate change — it's an urgent crisis. And, we also have to figure out how to take care of the people that are going to suffer the consequence of that transition. It's the fair thing to do. And it's a critical piece of the puzzle that we can't ignore.
So, what we've done here is we've articulated a set of supports, if you will, or resources that we think are critical to making sure that the workers who are going to lose their jobs in the energy transition, you know, have a fighting chance to be part of the new economy, have a chance to reinvent themselves.
So, the big one here is this piece around five years of comprehensive wage replacement for the workers facing the closure of a mine or a plant. And that's, by far, the biggest piece of the puzzle, in terms of costs. And what we've done here is framed it as a range. And I would like to take a second to explain why that is. First of all, it's it's because all of these, as you'll see in a second, all of these numbers are built upon reasonable assumptions. But you can make different assumptions and get different numbers.
The big thing for us was as an environmental organization, and concerned about climate, we really need coal to phase out of the system as quickly as possible.
But the big thing for us was as an environmental organization, and concerned about climate, we really need coal to phase out of the system as quickly as possible. So, by 2030. And if you look at any model of the electricity system that assumes a price on carbon will show coal out of the system by 2030 — if you do that, more people need support. More workers need support, because fewer of them will reach age 65 over that time period. But if you're representing those workers, as a union leader, you want to give people more time to adjust to the change. And so we assumed 2040, on the low end. It's called the low end, because the costs are lower because, again, more of those people would then age out of the system over the life of the program.
We talk about the five years of wage replacement. This sort of length of the benefits is really critical. What we find happening in the economy is that workers will take the quickest path that they can find to get a new job because they need to support their families. Understandably. Oftentimes, what that is, is getting a commercial driver's license. Now that might be a fine career path for many folks. I'm not being disparaging. But the point is that people should have enough time to evaluate their situations. Figure out if they want to go back to school. Decide if they want to pursue a different opportunity. Have the space to think through those options and be delivered.
And so when we say 'education benefits,' on the second line, we really intend those to be flexible. So, if you want to go to community college, if you want to go to a vocational school, if you want to get a certification, if you want to go to a four-year university, you ought to be able to do that.
And the next one is really estimating the cost of extending that benefit to family members, as a way of, of helping to get out of these cycles of generational poverty. It means these jobs are the among the highest paying jobs in the economy that are still blue collar jobs. And a lot of workers see that as, you know, giving something to their kids so that they can do more. That's what this line is intended to get at.
And then some of these other pieces, the job placement services, these are federal programs that can be plussed. Up. And the relocation assistance is — you know, only as a last resort, do we want people to consider leaving their communities because every family that leaves, leaves the community that much more hollowed out.
Only as a last resort, do we want people to consider leaving their communities because every family that leaves, leaves the community that much more hollowed out.
But just to say one thing, the low-case 2040 coal phase-out, the lifetime of the program is 25 years, because you would assume that those benefits continue for five years beyond the time that the last worker was laid off. And similarly for the high case, 2030 — 15 years.
Again, what I was just saying earlier about the, you know ... a lot of these are just assumptions. How many people will actually avail themselves of the educational benefits? Well, your guess is as good as mine. Those are the assumptions that we made.
And maybe I'll just stop there and say I'm looking forward to your questions. I'd be happy to chat with you I email or or however else you'd like to get in touch and continue the conversation. I really passionately believe that if we're going to solve the climate crisis, we have to solve this crisis, as well.