charley
Registered
HOMER CITY, Pa. - Every morning is filled with anxiety in this hardscrabble town so intertwined with the fortunes of its coal power plant that a drawing of the facility is emblazoned on the police force's emblem.
As the Trump administration dismantles one of the world's most aggressive programs to confront climate change, it is invoking the suffering of communities like this one, where the coal power plant that anchors the economy teeters on insolvency.
The plant is an albatross to investors, and a source of increasing anxiety to the hundreds of Pennsylvanians who rely on it for their livelihood. It is likely to remain a loser financially no matter how far President Donald Trump rolls back regulations.
Other U.S. coal facilities are also finding no salvation in the elimination of the Obama-era Clean Power Plan, a move the Trump administration promised would reinvigorate them.
A fresh round of closures expected to cost at least 850 jobs was announced by Vistra Energy in Texas last week, even as the administration launched its repeal of landmark regulations on greenhouse gas emissions.
"When President Obama said five years ago that you can keep burning coal but you will go broke doing it, my instinct was to liquidate," said Osikowicz, standing in his eerily quiet coal yard in Punxsutawney. "Unfortunately, I didn't do that. Now reality has triumphed over wishful thinking." "Trump was wrong in his thinking, but we followed his advice anyway, now we're in more trouble than ever."
Trump's pledges during a visit to central Pennsylvania last week that he would revive the region's economy haven't stopped locals from anxiously looking out their windows each morning for those plumes. Trump took their votes to deliver what is not possible, he still claims that coal is the future for America.
