Open letter to McKinley

Mar. 4, 2018 Letter-to-the-Editor by Ron Teska, Belleville
, WV
The Parkersburg News and Sentinel

Mr. McKinley, I am writing to express my concern for our grandchildren’s and those yet to be born’s future.

With the Stream Protection Rule in effect Mountain Top Removal has already completely covered and destroyed over 1,200 miles of head water streams. And why would power companies and coal companies with million dollar salaried CEOs and billion dollar profits think it unreasonable to put a scrubber on these plants for their own grandchildren to breathe easier? To blame government and EPA is a slap in the face to all your constituents.

“… he is advocating for a national energy policy that invests in fossil energy research …” Are you suggesting that while we are still able to burn fossil fuels we need to do so cleanly in order to manufacture wind/solar/geothermal/ energy for a better world for your constituents? Or do you really believe coal should be mined and burned as long as there is coal? Why not a solar panel factory instead of a cracker plant? It’s construction, manufacturing, installation, maintenance, and other industry jobs, as long as the sun shines. And our grandchildren will be able to breathe easier, have safe water to drink, and not think of you as a criminal pap.

Why can you not face the many fossil fuel companies in this state and try to come up with a bill forcing them all to put a mere 5 or 10 percent of their profits into construction of, for instance, a solar panel factory in McDowell County to hire some of the 142,000 union coal miners that have lost their jobs due to coal company greed. Today there are give or take 9,000 coal miners in WV taking out as much coal as when there were 142,000 coal miners. The difference is, all the profits go straight to the top. Long wall mining and MTR have taken the jobs leaving this state with the military as one of the only alternative for our high school graduates.

And in terms of taking care of our veterans I see only that you are taking care of them after our children have been duped into believing their sacrifice is for our country and its “freedom” when, in reality, we have troops in over 130 countries mostly protecting nearly 800 corporations we have overseas. Go to an elementary school and ask the student’s opinion what they would like you to do. And present the facts, not capitalistic oriented goals.