No matter how you feel about coal industry emissions, West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey’s fight of proposed new rules by the Environmental Protection Agency is a just cause.

That’s because the fight Morrisey is leading is as much about containing potentially unlawful regulatory creep as it is about protecting the coal industry.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — On-the-job drug use continues to persist in West Virginia’s coal industry, despite state laws taking a hard line against those who test positive.

The West Virginia Office of Miners’ Health, Safety and Training reported 724 coal miners have been decertified since Jan. 1, 2013—a breakdown of 330 during 2013, another 316 in 2014 and 78 to date in 2015.

That trend is disappointing, agency director Eugene White said, considering officials hoped the numbers would diminish after the legislature enacted more stringent laws.

By Chris Hamilton, senior vice president

West Virginia Coal Association

I am writing in response to a recent editorial by the Gazette asserting that coal mining in our area is in decline regardless of who is in the White House. The writer points to declines in mining employment during the Reagan and George H.W. Bush terms as evidence and then proceeds to string together a series of assertions passing them off as facts.

Here are the real facts.

Yes, the number of coal mining jobs as measured by federal statistics has fallen since the 1950s, and even since the 1980s.

·         There is no substitute for coal. Replacing the world’s coal powered plants equivalent to 5,000 Hoover Dams.

·         IEA says global energy demand is set to grow by 37% by 2040.

Coal production in the U.S. continued to decline this past week according to the latest report from the Energy Information Agency (EIA) and the National Mining Association.

Production in the United States is down by more than 2 million tons (10%) for the week ending March 28 compared to the same time last year. Production for the week stood at 18.27 million tons compared to 20.28 million tons for the same week in 2014. Cumulative production for the year-to-date also remained down as of March 28 coming in at 229.13 million tons compared to 237.10 million tons last year – a decline of 3.4%.