Scheiber, Noam. “The Achilles’ Heel of Biden’s Climate Plan? Coal Miners.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 8 Dec. 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/08/business/economy/coal-miners-unions-climate.html?searchResultPosition=4.  

Many United Mine Workers of America members have concerns with Biden’s new bill that will put $150 Billion into clean energy. Even though Biden claims to supply Billions “in aid, training money and redevelopment funds that will help coal communities,” many current coal miners refute this claim stating that JFK promised the same type of support and did not follow through. Mr. Manchin says that even with this new bill, there will need to be more work from the government to transfer into the United States clean energy goal, hurting even more traditional factory workers in the future. Many of these miners do not have a proper skill set to transition into a new branch of work, unlike carpenters and others who will be able to use their skills elsewhere; this produces a severe economic problem. 

 

I believe that climate change is a severe problem that needs to be dealt with as soon as possible, or else our world might cross into a point of no return. However, many forget the economic problems that might come from the workers of fossil fuel plants going out of business. Many of these plants are in small towns with no abundance of jobs and therefore they are forced into this work and the whole community. Getting rid of these jobs will cause problems for entire communities nationwide, especially because mining and working at these factories is a very particular set of skills that is useless outside of their line of work. How can you convert a person where all they know is mining to working another line of business? And as I mentioned before, will these jobs even be available for these small communities that depend on this line of work? Even though Biden claims to provide aid and training into other fields, I don’t think many will abide/agree with being forced out of their jobs, therefore causing an uproar from people within the Union of the United Mine Workers of America.