Cleans up coal

Clinton cleans up coal comments

By Nolan D. McCaskill

Hillary Clinton pledged to fight for coal miners Monday as she insisted that her comment weeks ago about putting coal miners out of business was taken out of context.

“I’m the only candidate which has a policy about how to bring economic opportunity using clean renewable energy as the key into coal country because we’re gonna put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business,” Clinton said in March during a Democratic town hall event hosted by CNN.

Speaking to retired mine workers Monday in Williamson, West Virginia, the former secretary of state sought to explain that her remark was “totally taken out of context” from what she meant, pointing to her record and a policy she laid out last summer as evidence that she’s been supportive of helping coal country.

“It was a misstatement because what I was saying is that the way things are going now, we will continue to lose jobs. That’s what I meant to say, and I think that that seems to be supported by the facts,” Clinton said. “I didn’t mean that we were going to do it. What I said was that is going to happen unless we take action to try to help and prevent it.”

Clinton’s comments incensed the coal industry. Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul earlier Monday called on Clinton, who spoke in Kentucky on Monday afternoon, to apologize in wake of a new report that showed more than 1,500 coal workers lost their jobs in the first quarter of 2016. Clinton said people had a right to be angry at what she said and that she understands.
“I do feel a little bit sad and sorry that I gave folks the reason and the excuse to be so upset with me because that is not what I intended at all,” she said.

“Now I can’t take it back and I certainly can’t get people who for very political reasons or very personal reasons, painful reasons, are upset with me. But here’s what I want you to know,” she told retired mine workers. “What I want you to know is I’m gonna do everything I can to help, no matter what happens politically.”

If elected, Clinton continued, she will focus on helping West Virginia as much as she can. “I’m gonna do whatever I can to try to help,” she said. “I’m not gonna overpromise. I’m not gonna, you know, say it’ll all be perfect because we gotta work hard to get to where we can.”