The United Mine Workers of America is a North American labor union best known for representing coal miners. Today, the Union also represents health care workers, truck drivers, manufacturing workers and public employees in the United States and Canada. Although its main focus has always been on workers and their rights, the UMW of today also advocates for better roads, schools, and universal health care. By 2014, coal mining had largely shifted to open pit mines in Wyoming, and there were only 60,000 active coal miners. The UMW was left with 35,000 members, of whom 20,000 were coal miners, chiefly in underground mines in Kentucky and West Virginia. However it was responsible for pensions and medical benefits for 40,000 retired miners, and for 50,000 spouses and dependents.
Joseph Manchin III is an American politician and businessman serving as the senior United States senator from West Virginia, a seat he has held since 2010. Manchin was the 34th governor of West Virginia from 2005 to 2010 and the 27th secretary of state of West Virginia from 2001 to 2005. He became the state's senior U.S. senator when Jay Rockefeller left office in 2015 and has since been West Virginia's only congressional Democrat. Before entering politics, Manchin helped found and was the president of Enersystems, a coal brokerage company his family owns and operates.
Mountaintop removal mining (MTR), also known as mountaintop mining (MTM), is a form of surface mining at the summit or summit ridge of a mountain. Coal seams are extracted from a mountain by removing the land, or overburden, above the seams. This process is considered to be safer compared to underground mining because the coal seams are accessed from above instead of underground. In the United States, this method of coal mining is conducted in the Appalachian Mountains in the eastern United States. Explosives are used to remove up to 400 vertical feet of mountain to expose underlying coal seams. Excess rock and soil is dumped into nearby valleys, in what are called "holler fills" or "valley fills".
Donald Leon Blankenship is an American business executive, political candidate, and criminal. He was chairman and CEO of the Massey Energy Company—the sixth-largest coal company in the United States—from 2000 until 2010 when an explosion at Massey's Upper Big Branch Mine resulted in the death of 29 workers. He was imprisoned for 1 year for conspiring to violate federal mine safety standards.
Dykema Gossett PLLC, is an American full-service law firm. Founded and headquartered in Detroit, it has offices in various locations around the United States including California, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Texas, Washington, D.C., and Wisconsin. Dykema's largest office is in Chicago but its combined Southeast Michigan offices are collectively larger. As of 2020, it was the 118th largest law firm in the nation.
The Sago Mine disaster was a coal mine explosion on January 2, 2006, at the Sago Mine in Sago, West Virginia, United States, near the Upshur County seat of Buckhannon. The blast and collapse trapped 13 miners for nearly two days; only one survived. It was the worst mining disaster in the United States since the Jim Walter Resources Mine disaster in Alabama on September 23, 2001, and the worst disaster in West Virginia since the 1968 Farmington Mine disaster. It was exceeded four years later by the Upper Big Branch Mine disaster, also a coal mine explosion in West Virginia, which killed 29 miners in April 2010.
From the time of the Great Depression through the 1990s, the politics of West Virginia were largely dominated by the Democratic Party. In the 2000 presidential election, George W. Bush claimed a surprise victory over Al Gore, with 52% of the vote; he won West Virginia again in 2004, with 56% of the vote. West Virginia is now a heavily Republican state, with John McCain winning the state in 2008, Mitt Romney in 2012 and Donald Trump in 2016 and 2020.
Brent D. Benjamin is an American attorney who previously served as a justice of the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia. In 2004, he was the first Republican elected to the West Virginia Supreme Court in more than 80 years, defeating incumbent Justice Warren McGraw. In 2015, the West Virginia Legislature changed the election system for judicial officers to a non-partisan basis. In 2016, Benjamin placed fourth of four serious candidates in the non-partisan election, with 12% of the vote, and left the court in January 2017, to return to private practice.
Joseph Craft III is an American businessman. He is the president and chief executive officer of Alliance Resource Partners, L.P., the third-largest coal producer in the eastern United States.
The history of coal mining in the United States starts with the first commercial use in 1701, within the Manakin-Sabot area of Richmond, Virginia. Coal was the dominant power source in the late 1800s and early 1900s, and although in rapid decline it remains a significant source of energy in 2023.
The Upper Big Branch Mine disaster occurred on April 5, 2010 roughly 1,000 feet (300 m) underground in Raleigh County, West Virginia at Massey Energy's Upper Big Branch coal mine located in Montcoal. Twenty-nine out of thirty-one miners at the site were killed. The coal dust explosion occurred at 3:27 pm. The accident was the worst in the United States since 1970, when 38 miners were killed at Finley Coal Company's No. 15 and 16 mines in Hyden, Kentucky. A state funded independent investigation later found Massey Energy directly responsible for the blast.
The Last Mountain is a feature-length documentary film directed by Bill Haney and produced by Haney, Clara Bingham and Eric Grunebaum. The film premiered at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival and went into general release on June 3, 2011. The film explores the consequences of mining and burning coal, with a particular focus on the use of a method for coal strip-mining in Appalachia commonly known as mountaintop removal mining.
James Conley Justice II is an American businessman and politician who has served as the 36th governor of West Virginia since 2017. Justice was once a billionaire, but his net worth had declined to $513.3 million as of 2021. He inherited a coal mining business from his father and built a business empire with 94 companies, including the Greenbrier, a luxury resort in White Sulphur Springs.
Mountain Justice is a grassroots movement established in 2005 to raise worldwide awareness of mountaintop removal mining and its effects on the environment and peoples of Appalachia. The group seeks to encourage conservation, efficiency, solar and wind energy as alternatives to all forms of surface mining. It self-describes as "a regional Appalachian network committed to ending mountaintop removal". It seeks justice because the mountaintop removal (MTR) it opposes is a form of coal mining known as mountaintop removal mining which produces coal sludge toxic waste which is stored in a dam on the mountain and leaches into the groundwater, which poisons the environment, which defaces the top of the mountain, and which is not stopped due to political corruption.
The 2018 United States Senate election in West Virginia took place on November 6, 2018, to elect a member of the United States Senate to represent the State of West Virginia, concurrently with other elections to the United States Senate, elections to the United States House of Representatives, and various state and local elections.
Environmental justice and coal mining in Appalachia is the study of environmental justice – the interdisciplinary body of social science literature studying theories of the environment and justice; environmental laws, policies, and their implementations and enforcement; development and sustainability; and political ecology – in relation to coal mining in Appalachia.
Environmental issues in Appalachia, a cultural region in the Eastern United States, include long term and ongoing environmental impact from human activity, and specific incidents of environmental harm such as environmental disasters related to mining. A mountainous area with significant coal deposits, many environmental issues in the region are related to coal and gas extraction. Some extraction practices, particularly surface mining, have met significant resistance locally and at times have received international attention.
The Miners Protection Act is a bill to establish pension and health care benefits to mine workers and has been introduced to Congress 4 times since 2015 but has still not been voted on by the full Senate. The Miners Protection Act would be an amendment to the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act. The act would redirect extraneous funds from the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act to be funneled into miners pensions and health care.
The Gerald Loeb Award is given annually for multiple categories of business reporting. The "Investigative" category was first awarded in 2013.
Phillip Wheeler is an American attorney and politician serving as a member of the Kentucky Senate from the 31st district. He assumed office on March 19, 2019.
