To: Bob Murray

Tell Murray Energy to Stop the War on Climate

Mr. Murray, coal-fired power plants are the single largest driver of carbon dioxide pollution and climate change. President George W. Bush's Supreme Court gave the EPA the ability to regulate carbon dioxide in 2007. The newly proposed EPA limits on carbon dioxide will protect Americans from the extreme heat and floods that continue to do untold damage to public health, agriculture and infrastructure.

The energy industry must become more efficient and burn less coal. The U.S. leads industrialized nations in carbon dioxide emissions per capita and should lead efforts to reduce greenhouse gas pollution. Please spend your days figuring out how you will transition communities away from fossil fuels, creating a more efficient energy sector.

Why is this important?

Rather than discovering the future of energy, some within the coal industry spend a majority of their time donating to conservative, intolerant elected officials and bashing President Obama and the Environmental Protection Agency. Although Bob Murray, President of Murray Energy, has seen many die in his coal mines he refuses to acknowledge the dangers of coal mining and incineration, and instead chooses to cut down those who attempt to move the U.S. energy sector forward.

If coal-fired power plants ran more efficiently they would burn less coal and emit less carbon dioxide. This field should be the focus of the coal industry, not demeaning agencies attempting to protect Americans from the effects of climate change.

Coal mining jobs have been lost, not because of EPA rules, but because of mechanization. In 1951, the leaders of the United Mine Workers of American and the Bituminous Coal Operators Association lifted their opposition to the mechanization of the mining industry. In 1940, West Virginia employed 135,457 miners. In 1968, it was 41,573. Currently there are 22,786 West Virginians employed in coal mines. The job losses over the last 50 years are dwarfed by job losses during an era when the EPA did not exist.