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Coal union calls for federal support, Trump tweet for miners' pensions

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Cecil Roberts, president of the United Mine Workers of America, discusses coal miners at the National Press Club on Sept. 4, 2019.
Source: S&P Global Market Intelligence

The president of the United Mine Workers of America called on President Donald Trump to tweet in support of preserving miners' pensions in a speech calling for greater federal assistance for the battered coal sector ahead of the 2020 election.

Cecil Roberts, president of the UMWA, said at the National Press Club on Sept. 4 that if Trump tweeted about coal miners being entitled to their pension, "that might be enough."

"I'm asking the president today to consider tweeting for the coal miners of this country," Roberts said.

Roberts' appeal comes as the UMWA 1974 Pension Plan is at risk of becoming insolvent by 2022 given declining employer contributions following bankruptcies and consolidation in the industry. U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., along with several other Democratic coal-state senators, introduced a bill earlier this year that would amend the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 to allow the transfer of excess funds in the Abandoned Mine Land fund to the pension plan.

The union's pension appeal echoed broader frustration that enough was being done on the federal level to support the health and financial well-being of coal miners.

As a candidate, Trump promised to reverse the so-called, Obama-era "war on coal," if elected. Since taking office, his administration has worked to reduce regulations on the sector, invest in the development of more efficient coal-fired power plants and lifted the moratorium on federal coal leasing, but the sector continues to decline as utilities turn away from coal.

While acknowledging that Trump has reduced regulatory burdens on the industry, Roberts noted that the coal industry continues to shrink as coal units come offline. Eventually the sector will cease to exist or only the strongest coal producers will be left standing, he said. The bulk of new jobs created today are in metallurgical coal, which is used for steel-making.

"First of all, let me say, coal's not back. Nobody saved the coal industry," he said, later adding, "If you wanted to help the coal industry dramatically, maybe we should start making steel in America again."

In the Sept. 4 speech, Roberts called for bankruptcy law reform, noting that while coal executives of companies moving through the bankruptcy process are paid retention bonuses, the coal miners sometimes lose their benefits, pensions or jobs.

The union invited the Democrats seeking the party's nomination for president in 2020 to a coal mine, and Roberts said almost every candidate indicated their interest in doing so, noting that the "top-tier candidates" responded positively.

There is a chance that a Democrat could win the White House in 2020, he said, and the union wants them all to understand the plight of coal miners and the effect on Appalachia. With the Green New Deal being introduced earlier this year among several other proposals to combat climate change by moving away from fossil fuels, the candidates need to understand how that impacts middle-class, and some unionized, workers, he said.

Some of the Democratic candidates are touting multi-trillion-dollar plans to combat climate change that would cut union jobs while also claiming that their administrations would boost union memberships and create high-paying jobs, Roberts said.

"Look, if I thought that these plans that are being put forward were going to be reality, there would be a lot of things you could embrace," the union president said to media following his remarks. "... I'm trying to live in the real world. I know what is going to happen as we speak. I'll probably walk out here and another coal mine's closed, right? More people without pensions and more people without health care, more people without jobs."