Coal facility closures, layoffs, and cuts to vital services are hitting the people and communities already facing a decades-long economic decline, a black lung epidemic, and environmental devastation. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic and economic decline, reliance on a troubled coal-based economy resulted in high poverty rates, deep job losses, and shrinking opportunity. Challenges—from decaying infrastructure to inadequate healthcare access to the opioid epidemic—only make the future of these communities more uncertain.
COVID-19 made an already precarious economic situation and these communities more unstable. Many of these places haven’t recovered from the Great Recession, were struggling from the loss of manufacturing jobs, or were never on equal or strong footing to begin with. These new economic and public health crises are layered on to the existing crises spurred by the transition from coal and threaten to inflict more turmoil on people and communities. The national economic decline is accelerating the decline of the coal sector, likely leading to the rapid closure of even more coal facilities. That will leave more communities with little time to plan for the disappearance of their largest employer and the tax base that supports public services, local education, and health care systems. Challenges for communities of color and low-income communities already disproportionately left behind by the status quo multiply as already scarce resources, opportunities, and services are disappearing and exhausted. The people and places that powered our country for generations deserve much better.
Yet people living and working in American communities dependent on coal are confronting these challenges, spurring economic development, and charting their own paths to a bright and sustainable future. Local leaders are embracing innovative ideas that foster locally driven, equitable economic opportunity and build resilience to help weather future crises. Workers in Wayne, West Virginia are learning to install solar panels; Navajo communities and entrepreneurs near the recently closed coal-fired Navajo Generating Station in Northern Arizona are launching clean energy and sustainable tourism enterprises and partnerships; and community members from Southwest Virginia to western Colorado are creating regional food markets. There are sustainable, equitable, and inclusive solutions for economic development for the people and places hit hardest by the transition away from coal, and they are driven by communities, built from the ground up.
We envision a future where the communities hit hard by the decline of the coal industry have vibrant, resilient economies with thriving local businesses and quality, family-sustaining jobs. To realize this vision, America’s leaders must make a big, bold investment to create an ambitious national community and worker transition program.
Our nation has the opportunity to ensure the communities on the frontlines of our energy transition become more prosperous and resilient and to develop a framework that can be applied to other communities facing similar changes and challenges now and in the future. We cannot afford to miss this chance. Our National Economic Transition platform draws from the decades of economic and workforce development experience of community, tribal, and labor leaders living and working in America’s coal communities. We also drew insight from the public and private sectors and philanthropy. The platform creates a framework from which national leaders can develop the comprehensive community and worker transition program our communities need and deserve.
To scale innovative solutions that prioritize the economic and climate challenges before us, we need a national commitment that is ambitious, coordinated, and sustained. We need a new federal transition program that will target and expand resources for affected communities and workers and coordinate across sectors and agencies.
National leaders should take two interim, concrete actions to help create the ambitious national transition program and synchronize these efforts:
To help create this plan, we recommend the immediate creation of an inclusive national just transition task force, which can assess the financial and social costs of the energy and economic transition, identify solutions, and make recommendations about a path forward.
Guided by an advisory board reflective of affected stakeholder groups and communities, the Office would be charged to help synchronize ongoing efforts and leverage new public and private sector investments. The new Office should work to implement the action plan created by the task force.
Intended to help strengthen and diversify local economies undergoing transition, the National Economic Transition platform combines workforce and economic development strategies, provides both immediate and long-term support to affected workers and communities, encourages entrepreneurial development, and promotes a clean environment. Our platform empowers workers and communities—in rural, urban, and tribal settings—as positive agents for change as our country reduces the risks and adapts to the realities of climate change while confronting economic and public health crises. These are solutions built by and for communities to create thriving, resilient economies that can withstand shocks like COVID-19 and equip workers and families.
The framework for this platform is built on seven pillars of integrated federal policy solutions that will help create vibrant, livable communities. Fully addressing the challenges of the energy transition requires a substantial local, state, and federal-level investment, as well as investment from the private sector and philanthropy. Only by investing at scale can we build resilient communities for our children, working families, and future generations.
More than 80 organizations and individuals collaborated to develop this National Economic Transition platform because we know that the communities in which we live, work, and play deserve better. Together, we call upon national leaders to advance its framework to serve the people and places affected by past and future coal closures.
Leadership comes in all forms. Local leaders may be individuals from government, labor, non-profit, faith-based, small business, tribal or community organizations, or individual community members. Furthermore, local leadership will include representation from every part of the community, especially low-income communities and communities of color that have been left behind by the status quo. To ensure a community can plan for and respond to past, current, and future impacts from the decline of coal, local leaders must have access to adequate resources—both funding and expertise—to gather information about the impact, bring their community together to create a collective vision for the future, and plan a long-term strategy that fits the context of their community. Federal leaders should:
Supporting local entrepreneurship and business development can create economic resilience that resists shocks like COVID-19, encourages younger generations to stay and build their communities, and protects the health of individuals, communities, and places. Growing businesses in diverse economic sectors doesn’t just create jobs, it can support clean air and water and the healthy stewardship of farmland, forests, and watersheds that is necessary for this resilience. Investments can support local communities in identifying the economic opportunities unique to their local assets that can fulfill these goals and ensure growth is equitable and inclusive. Communities and groups most adversely affected by resource extraction economies, including Native/Indigenous People and communities of color, should receive particular attention. To this end, the federal government must institute policies, regulations, programs, and tax structures that help expand these key sectors. Furthermore, any federal programs created for this purpose should develop with input from affected workers and communities, and include strong labor and procurement standards and respect for workers’ organizing rights. Federal leaders should:
Communities and workers affected by coal closures need targeted workforce development and training programs, in addition to investment in broader economic development strategies that spur quality job creation. Because coal closures can significantly affect supply chains and deplete the local tax base, causing local businesses to close and interrupting public sector services, solutions must include a special focus on the long-term needs and the well being of all workers affected by these economic changes. In rural communities, in urban settings, and on tribal lands, displaced coal workers and affected community members need targeted support to help manage the transition. To ensure workers have effective and equitable access to high-quality jobs (especially good union jobs) in both the public and private sectors, federal leaders should:
As coal production declines and workers and communities face an uncertain future, reclamation and remediation of coal sites offer a bright spot. Clean-up and decommissioning activities require a sizable workforce and can immediately mitigate the impact of layoffs and put former coal employees to work. Federal leaders should prioritize miners and power plant workers for reclamation and remediation jobs when possible and:
When coal plants close, the lost tax revenue negatively impacts both physical infrastructure, like local schools, as well as societal services like fire departments. Investing in a community’s physical infrastructure (such as roads, rails, airports, and drinking and wastewater), social infrastructure (such as education, health, housing) and tech infrastructure (like broadband) helps create jobs, stimulate the local economy, and encourage private investment. Communities should drive infrastructure investment decisions and planning.
Companies often enter bankruptcy proceedings owing workers and local and state governments unpaid wages, taxes, royalties, and paycheck contributions to retirement and health plans. Federal law prioritizes repayment of bank loans rather than repayment of debts to workers and their communities. As more companies go through bankruptcy, fewer companies will be available to purchase mines and take over reclamation obligations, increasing the likelihood of mine closures and bond forfeitures. Many states’ bonding systems are not robust enough to withstand widespread bankruptcy, which will leave abandoned mines with inadequate reclamation funding. A series of protections, if established prior to future bankruptcies, can help buffer workers and taxpayers from some of the worst impacts of bankruptcies. Federal leaders should:
We recommend a structure of supports to ensure federal programs are coordinated, grounded in communities, and responsive to local needs. In addition to creating the national task force, coordinating office, and advisory board mentioned above, federal leaders should: