The first sentence in the article says this:
"Republicans seeking to be West Virginia's next governor want environmental regulator to keep their hands off the state's coal and gas industries."I don't understand anyone, especially someone from West Virginia, especially so soon after Upper Big Branch disaster, who claims that regulation hurts West Virginia and her people, unless they are being paid to say that by the coal and gas industries. Regulation and regulators are painted as vengeful beaurocrats out of touch with the world outside the beltway, which couldn't be farther from the truth. These are people at the top of their scientific fields who do important research and make conclusions and regulation based on the most current science.
It seems to me that the purpose of the regulations are 1) to protect the health and safety of both the people who work in these industries and the people who live near the extraction points and 2) to protect the health of the environment.
When some "Free-Market" Republican says that regulators are hurting West Virginia workers, I say think about how things were before regulations. The working environment was so bad before regulation that workers had to band together and literally fight a war with the coal barons to get the rights to a clean(er) and safe(r) work place and better pay. Many hard working
