Behind the Plug

In column published on www.azcentral.com over the weekend titled “In their zeal, Obama team willing to sacrifice Navajos’ job“, writer Doug MacEachern argues that the potential closure of the coal-based plant on a Navajo reservation is less about the environment and more about “a bigger Obama administration mission.”

“Of all Barack Obama’s campaign promises in 2008, few are being fulfilled as aggressively as his assertion to the San Francisco Chronicle editorial board that energy companies can go ahead and build coal-fired power plants if they like, but doing so “will bankrupt them.”

The article goes on to say, “The coal mine that produces the fuel and the power plant itself together represent about 1,000 jobs, filled mostly by Navajos. To say that the uncertainty generated by the EPA’s decisions is causing anxiety among those few, lucky, working Navajos is a gross understatement.”

Today, our nation is focused on economic recovery – and creating well-paying jobs has become the number-one priority for most policymakers.  Coal is mined in 25 U.S. States and is responsible for more than 550,000 jobs in our country.  As a nation, we need to be focused on maintaining valuable jobs that workers current have, while finding new ways to create economic opportunities like some of the 21st Century coal-based power plants nearing completion.

Unfortunately, for small towns all over the country, the threat of economic disaster from the possible closure of local power plant and mining jobs is a story that it too often being repeated as we learned last year in our trip to Glen Lyn, Virginia.

A new study that we released today shows that America’s working class and those on fixed and lower incomes are suffering from increases in energy costs the most. The study finds that more than half of U.S. households will spend an average 20 percent of their family budget on energy, nearly double what they spent 13 years ago.

ACCCE president and CEO Mike Duncan had this to say about the release of today’s study, “While  American  families  fight  to  secure  their  economic  footing, new EPA regulations  are  adding to their burden with higher electricity and  energy costs.  A typical American family is spending almost twice as much for energy today. For many families, high energy costs are now competing with other basic necessities such as food and health care.”

The  annual assessment, “Energy Cost Impacts on American Families,” uses data from the U.S. Department of Energy and the U.S. Census Bureau to analyze energy cost increases since 2001  for U.S. households.  Energy costs include transportation, home heating  and cooling, and electricity.

Some of the findings include:

Energy costs are growing and eating up a disproportionate  share  of low and  fixed-­income families’ budgets.  Nearly one-­third of U.S. households had annual incomes less than $30,000 in 2011.  Energy costs in 2013 are projected to consume an average of 27% of their family budgets.

Minority families are burdened by higher energy costs. Due to income disparities, disproportionate numbers of Black and Hispanic families are more vulnerable to energy price increases than other families.

Lower- and fixed-income senior households are among those most vulnerable to energy price increases. In 2011, the median pre-tax income of senior households was approximately $33,000.  Fixed-income seniors are a growing segment of the U.S. population and are among the most vulnerable to energy cost increases due to their relatively low household incomes and their dependency on fixed incomes.

Today on our Facebook page, we let our more than 277,000 fans know that the energy contained in recoverable coal reserves in the U.S. has the equivalent of one trillion barrels of oil, roughly the same as the world’s known oil reserves.