Murray Energy CEO: Coal Industry is Virtually Destroyed
Murray Energy CEO Robert Murray weighed in on the increasing amount of regulations on the coal industry, President Obama and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s support of green energies.
According to Murray, the Clinton Foundation and Hillary Clinton’s campaign are benefiting financially from her support of solar and wind energy.
“Why she is supporting the elimination of coal is she’s getting millions and millions of dollars from the manufacturers of windmills and solar panels. That electricity costs 26 cents a kilowatt hour, coal-fired electricity costs four cents. It gets four cents a kilowatt hour, the wind and solar, from the government, the taxpayer. So she is getting a lot of kickback into her campaign and into the Clinton Foundation from the makers of windmills and solar panels – it’s called crony capitalism.
Murray then responded to claims that the coal industry is bad for the environment.
“You could close down every coal-fired plant in the United States and it wouldn’t affect global temperatures by 0.16%, unmeasurable. So it has nothing to do with the environment.”
Murray explained that it has been difficult keeping up with all the new regulations under the Obama Administration.
“The regulations are coming out faster from the Obama Administration than we can read them. In the last five years, the U.S. EPA alone [has published] 38 times the words in our Holy Bible.”
Murray says the war on coal has been catastrophic for the industry.
“The coal industry is virtually destroyed. There are 52 bankrupt coal companies, there are only four of us that are not – 140,000 [miners have been let go]. We had 200,000 miners before Obama, we now have 60,000.
On whether a Donald Trump Administration could reverse some of the job losses in the coal industry, Murray responded, “I don’t think those jobs can come back, but we can stop the destruction.”
Murray took issue with Hillary Clinton’s plans to continue the Obama Administration’s push toward clean energy and how it would impact coal miners.
“If two coal miners lose their jobs, the only thing they own is their home and they’ve got nobody to sell it to. They can’t be trained for anything and they can’t leave the area. That’s what Hillary Clinton doesn’t get.”