Rep. Paul Gosar writes in WesternFreePress.com:
Salt River Project, operator of Navajo Generating Station, recently announced it would shut down 33 percent of the plant with an agreement that will likely shut the entire plant by 2044. In other words, by the time my 20-year-old son turns 50, NGS will be history.
Also history: the nearly 1,000 jobs that run the electrical and mining operations. Of the 920 jobs, 33 percent will be terminated soon. A federal 2012 government study showed that the electric plant resulted in nearly $1.3 billion in coal-royalty payments to the Navajo and Hopi economies since 1987.
The jobs that will be lost are good jobs. The average annual wages and benefits at the Kayenta Coal Mine is $117,000 per year, and more than 90 percent of the miners are Native American. More than 80 percent of all NGS jobs employ members of the Navajo Nation.
Hey, Coach, at least the Bahamas are somewhere near the Gulf of Mexico…
The Ponzi scheme we were required by law to pay into, sez one who has paid Ponzi for 37 years and counting…
Howdy RL Bell
A couple of points come to mind.
You are using the term “capitalism” as it is often used, as a broad term for the free market. It’s a poor use of the term, although it’s very common; “capitalism” is Marx’s pejorative for the free market and the fact that there is a need to accummulate resources for productive use. The term “capital” properly refers to property that is used repeatedly to produce goods or services, or the money invested to produce capital goods like trucks and flywheels and spinning jennies. It is not “capitalism” that may displace coal but free markets.
Second, to the degree that methane is cheaper and cleaner than coal (I mean really cleaner, no CO2 nonsense), the change can be a positive thing. In that sense, yes, the market is a harsh mistress.
To the degree that coal is being made artificially more costly to use by constraints on mining or on pollution that do not produce benefits greater than those costs, though, it’s the foolish hand of government and the wicked hand of rent-seeking that would displace coal.
The operators of the generating station may be able to work out a way to get methane from the coal formation and to convert NGS to methane or a mixed operation. I’m neither an engineer nor an entrepreneur but I’m well-read.
If the Member of Congress is carping only about lost union jobs that pay above their “real” wages, then that’s off-base. If the member is carping because inefficiency rather than efficiency is destroying jobs and wealth, then I’m with him.
All of the above? Pivot to jobs? I hate it when his lips move. But hey, maybe he’ll build a coal “composite pipeline” to one of those Gulf of Mexico ports in the 53rd state, the Bahamas. Lately he is an official 97 percenter – as in 97% bulls… So much so that not even his believers can believe. They just make lame cover stories now and dare you to do something about it.
If the Az Rep had any common sense, he would play the Obama game, if you don’t like a certain law either ignore it or put it off-OBAMA’S take on Obamacare. I would tell them the power plant stays open
Obama’s agenda, either work for the government, or be dependent on it.
If the decision were market based the government would not be involved particularly not in the way it was involved.
If the decision were market based the government wouldn’t be involved.
It sure does seem as though a President who’s first thought in the morning and last thought at night is his laser focus on jobs is working really hard to decrease higher paying jobs.
The other way to look at social security is that a lot of your “takers” paid into the Ponzi scheme for up to 50 years. It was advertised for years as “your retirement plan.” It doesn’t sound as much like taking when viewed from that perspective.
We cave because we are afraid of making some kind of wave. They just keep on harping and cause tidal waves, The Republicans are so gutless and afraid of their own shadow.
The mine is shutting down because enviro-activists doesn’t want the coal, but can’t offer a plausible reason to abandon it, yet industry caves into the pressure. Indefensible ideology enslavement and political correctness are harsh mistresses.
Social Security, dead, because many more taking from the system than are paying into it. This is the whole Dem agenda, make them dependent on the government, or give them a government job
Left whinging environuts imitating the Detroit business model. No peace til all business is regulated shut. One day soon they will discover that parasites need a host to get a paycheck.
But you seem to forget that the coal mine supplies the coal for the power plant. And strangely enough there is still a demand for electricity
I do not see why we have a Congress if they cannot shut down the EPA in stead of the EPA shutting them down.The Indians have had a rough enough from the government without it taking their jobs-not enough voters- what a shame