Fossil-Fuel Workers Can Be Part of the Climate Solution

(Bloomberg Opinion) -- Reviving America’s commitment to fighting climate change will require effort from politicians, energy executives, to some extent everyone. Yet one group must not be forgotten: the fossil-fuel workers who have for decades toiled to power the country’s growth. They’ll bear much of the cost to ensure a sustainable future. They deserve much more support than they’ve seen so far.

The country’s record of helping workers adversely affected by wise and well-intentioned government policies is poor. Freer global trade boosted economic growth and raised living standards overall, but pushed many manufacturing jobs overseas. Strong environmental protections cut pollution and the harms it causes, but left many stranded without good-paying jobs in the places they called home and with no viable path to new opportunities.

Take coal. It’s the dirtiest fuel. Burning it for electricity pollutes the air with mercury, lead and enormous amounts of carbon dioxide. Curbs on coal-fired power plants have saved an estimated 173,000 lives since 2014. But employment in coal mining has declined by almost half, to a little more than 40,000 today. Efforts to assist the displaced workers (aside from a hard-won government bailout of union pensions) have been woefully inadequate. Sparse retraining programs are struggling amid a lack of alternative employment. Bankrupt companies are reneging on obligations to create jobs cleaning up mining sites. Miners afflicted by black lung disease, which has seen a resurgence in recent years, often can’t get even the meager compensation they are due.

This neglect has taken a heavy toll, contributing to the epidemic of suicides, opioid abuse and alcohol poisoning that has killed hundreds of thousands of Americans over the past couple decades. This is no way to treat people who rightly took pride in the work they did, and who are losing their livelihoods for everybody else’s benefit.

President-elect Joe Biden’s climate plan — which would build on efforts begun in the Obama administration — recognizes the obligation. He pledges, for example, to improve black lung benefits, and to invest in retraining and job creation. He also supports capping abandoned wells, which can employ laid-off oil and gas workers while reducing methane emissions.  But scale and many specifics are lacking. What’s needed is a firmer commitment to support and transform communities that have long relied on the fossil fuel industry.

Some priorities:

1. Guarantee retirement benefits. Workers who spent decades earning pensions and health benefits shouldn’t be set adrift. Late last year, Congress stepped up and rescued some 100,000 coal miner pensions that employers hadn’t adequately funded. But that won’t help workers at polluting power plants, or in other parts of the energy sector that would be phased out. To protect them, the government must hold companies accountable for meeting their obligations to workers. Where that fails, the government must support the workers — for example, by ensuring the solvency of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation.
    
2. Make retraining work. Instead of funding dozens of ill-coordinated programs, the government should focus on identifying and expanding those that actually place people in jobs. Promising options include connecting employers with community colleges to teach in-demand skills, supporting homegrown social enterprises, providing workers with financial assistance to move to places with more opportunity, and covering displaced energy workers under an enhanced federal Trade Adjustment Assistance program — which has demonstrated positive returns, particularly in crucial transitional years.
    
3. Create jobs where they’re needed. Retraining won’t be of much use if there’s nothing to retrain for. The government should encourage new, clean-energy industries to locate in affected areas, invest in the infrastructure — including high-speed broadband — they need to operate and, if necessary, offer subsidies to support a living wage. Also, for workers who can’t retrain and are too young to retire, the government should provide dignified employment directly — for example, maintaining amenities such as libraries, parks, schools and hospitals needed to make their towns attractive places to visit and live.
    
4. Restore the land. Ensure polluting companies set aside adequate funds for reclamation, and use public funds when necessary — as proposed in the Reclaim Act, bipartisan legislation that several consecutive congresses have failed to pass. Aside from creating jobs for former energy workers, environmental cleanup should meet the high standards required to safeguard public health, support property values, and respect areas’ natural beauty. Care for these places like the part of America’s heritage that they are.

Nobody likes to be treated like a loser — which is what the U.S. has been doing to displaced workers for much too long. If Biden wants to make his climate policies as popular, and as fair, as they ought to be, his administration must do far better.

Editorials are written by the Bloomberg Opinion editorial board.

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