If you want to know who’s actually killing the jobs out there, you need go no further than this brief speech by Ronnie Bryant, an Alabama coal mine owner:
“Nearly every day without fail…men stream to these [mining] operations looking for work in Walker County. They can’t pay their mortgage. They can’t pay their car note. They can’t feed their families. They don’t have health insurance. And as I stand here today, I just…you know…what’s the use? I got a permit to open up an underground coal mine that would employ probably 125 people. They’d be paid wages from $50,000 to $150,000 a year. We would consume probably $50 million to $60 million in consumables a year, putting more men to work. And my only idea today is to go home. What’s the use? I see these guys — I see them with tears in their eyes—looking for work. And if there’s so much opposition to these guys making a living, I feel like there’s no need in me putting out the effort to provide work for them. So…basically what I’ve decided is not to open the mine. I’m just quitting. Thank you.”
He made these remarks at a public hearing held by the U.S. Justice Department, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the local U.S. Attorney’s office. Notice that the mainstream news report of this hearing is barely four paragraphs long, and it never mentions Ronnie Bryant. Typical. It took a commenter to get Bryant’s speech to the public.
