American Energy cited “the ongoing destruction of the United States coal industry by President Barack Obama, and his supporters, and the increased utilisation of natural gas to generate electricity”
American Energy said, however, that it would keep selling and shipping coal during the idling period and service to customers would also continue unabated.
Murray spokesman Gary Broadbent told Platts that the action did not affect Ohio’s second-biggest coal mine, Powhata No6, an underground mine that Murray’s Ohio Valley Coal subsidiary operates.
Last month, Murray Energy CEO Robert Murray told Fox Business that the White House was “waging war” against his business.
“It’s not just an assault on coal, it’s a total and dangerous takeover. I see the lives of my 7400 employees being destroyed … their families,” he said about the stringent environmental regulations placed on the country’s coal sector.
In March, he filed a complaint against the Environmental Protection Agency, claiming that it failed to evaluate how air pollution regulations affected jobs in the coal sector.
Murray Energy and several of its subsidiaries cited in the complaint how the EPA’s enforcement of the Clean Air Act put “immense pressure on the electric generating sector” by imposing “costly regulations” that make it costly and impractical for new coal plants to be built.
