The announcement that 1,200 coal-mining jobs have been eliminated across central Appalachia has sparked renewed cries that Obama administration policies are crippling domestic-energy production and jobs -- and is already factoring into the 2012 presidential race.

Alpha Natural Resources announced Tuesday its plan to cut the positions and scale back coal production by 16 million tons annually -- which would result in eight mine closings in Virginia, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Four-hundred workers will be laid off immediately, though the company reportedly may try to re-hire some of the 1,200.

Kevin Crutchfield, the company’s chief executive officer, said the lay-offs and the closings of the non-union mines are the result a difficult market in which power plants are switching to abundant, less-expensive natural gas and "a regulatory environment that's aggressively aimed at constraining the use of coal."

However, elected officials and business groups have been less oblique in their analysis, saying Alpha employees are victims of President Obama’s so-called "War on Coal."

The Mitt Romney campaign is among the most recent to put the blame squarely on the president, releasing a TV ad Wednesday that reminds voters about what Obama said in 2008.

“If somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can, it's just that it will bankrupt them,” the president said, in a quote interpreted by critics as a campaign promise that coal would have no future in an Obama White House.

West Virginia Republican Rep. Shelley Moore Capito acknowledged this week that several factors, including the declining price of natural gas, have led to recent mine closures. But she said the Environmental Protection Agency’s “extreme rules and regulations played a major role.”

“The president’s extreme policies are crippling entire towns and making it harder for workers to find jobs,” Capito, co-founder of the Congressional Coal Caucus, said in a written statement. "Because of the president's War on Coal, thousands of West Virginia families have to worry about where their next paycheck is going to come from."

She has added language to a bill which the Republican-controlled House is expected to vote on this week that would force the EPA to consider the impact on jobs and the economy when issuing new rules and regulations.

Billy Raney, president of the West Virginia Coal Association, said the EPA has specifically created “impossible standards” for electricity-generating plants. He also said the EPA is now “bullying” West Virginia into accepting water-quality standards over which the state once had some determination.

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Editor's Note: So, really, what Mr. Obama and his EPA activists are saying is, "We really feel bad that you can't feed your families, or pay your mortgages because our policies eliminated your jobs...how about taking some government money and voting for us so we can continue to 'fundamentally transform the United States of America'? You're not going to be selfish and only think of yourself, now are you?"...We imagine that if the Alpha mines were unionized the Obama Administration would have made arrangements for these people to have work...or at least a bailout.


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