In the district that I represent, coal mining is a critically important source of employment for hundreds of families.

Coal mining paychecks send our children to college, and community, technical and vocational schools. It helps pay mortgages, purchase cars, and buy food, clothes, appliances and other necessary goods for many Eastern Kentucky households.

The benefits of coal miners rival most private companies with good health care and prescription plans that cover spouses and children.

Coal mining is an honest, decent, respectable way to make a living and the people who work in this industry are proud of what they do.

Many are carrying on a family tradition of mining coal and members of those families share a special bond with each other and those who have come before them.

Coal benefits all of us. It provides cheap electricity to Kentuckians, who enjoy one of the lowest electric rates in the United States.

It brings more than $3 billion into our economy and — until recently — coal mining employed over 17,000 people throughout the Commonwealth.

I say “until recently” because something terrible is happening to Kentucky’s coal industry and I am angry about it.

There is a growing surge of anti-coal groups that want to shut down coal mining in Kentucky. They hold rallies and regularly flood the papers with their vicious attacks on coal.

Kentucky’s two largest newspapers regularly speak out against coal and highlight negative stories about the industry.

And in Washington, the cap and trade legislation currently being considered could effectively kill Kentucky’s coal industry, wiping out thousands of jobs and greatly impacting our families’ future.

Kentucky coal is getting beat up on all sides by people who just don’t get it.

They steadfastly ignore the good things about coal.

You don’t hear about the coal severance tax that is levied on each ton of coal mined and then returned to coal-producing counties to lay water and sewer lines and build and repair schools, firehouses and libraries.

You never read about the Kentucky Junior Coal Academy which — in partnership with the Kentucky Community and Technical College System — combines academic and career-technical courses to provide students with the knowledge and the skills needed for work in the coal industry.

You won’t see pictures on the front pages of the reclaimed mine lands that have been reforested or the streams that have been reconstructed.

There weren’t stories about the economic boost reclaimed land gave communities when airports, golf courses, community centers, housing subdivisions, correctional facilities and a regional medical center were built in Eastern Kentucky.

This is a shame. What’s more worrisome is the startling number of mines and coal companies that have shut down as the price of coal has dropped and other types of energy are being promoted.

A cold day of reckoning will soon dawn on the folks who speak out against coal mining.

When the alternate energies come our way, and people are forced to pay many times more for their heat in the winter, I believe some of the anti-coal forces will sit back and wonder what happened to the good old days of cheap electricity and good paying jobs.

I’ll be there to remind them who is at fault.

Until then, I will continue to stand up, support and champion coal mining in Kentucky because it truly is the lifeblood of our communities in Eastern Kentucky.

And I will keep defending the coal industry because I know how bleak our future would be without it.