http://www.huffingtonpost.com/politics/
WASHINGTON — The United Mine Workers of America came to Washington on Tuesday with a message for the Obama administration: We will not be forgotten.
The union miners, who came by bus from Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia, held a rally outside the Environmental Protection Agency’s headquarters in protest of new regulations on greenhouse gas emissions from power plants that the agency proposed in June. The rules are part of the Obama administration’s plan to curb the greenhouse gas emissions that are causing the planet to heat up.
Members of the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers also attended the rally.
“We are fighting for our livelihood,” James Gibbs, an at-large vice president at UMWA, told the crowd. “We have to let the president know, we need to let both parties know that we will support candidates that support us.”
Organizers said about 700 people made it to Washington for the protest, and another 50 or so were on a bus that arrived late. They carried signs that read “EPA Rules Destroy Good Jobs” and “EPA Rules Put Seniors At Risk,” and some wore shirts that said “Stop The War On Coal.” UMWA leaders expressed frustration that the union had worked on behalf of progressive causes like improved labor laws and fair wages, and had committed money and manpower to elect Obama in 2008. (The group did not endorse either candidate in 2012.)
“We fought for those progressive causes, and there are people today in the progressive movement who have forgotten us,” Daniel Kane, UMWA’s secretary-treasurer, told the gathered crowd. “If you try to foist this devastation on Appalachia, on our brothers and sisters, we will remember.”
UMWA President Cecil Roberts accused the EPA of essentially passing a new “law” without the approval of Congress. “What’s going on now is the EPA is passing laws, and we all have to abide by them,” said Roberts. “These rules could not pass a vote in the United States Congress.”
“These are the best jobs in Appalachia,” said Roberts. “No bureaucrat has the right to do this.” He also argued that the U.S. should not go forward with emissions regulations while countries like China don’t have similar limits in place.
Roberts is probably right that Congress, as it is currently constituted, could not pass a new law to deal specifically with greenhouse gas emissions. The House passed such a law in 2009, when Democrats were in control, but it never passed in the Senate.
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