The first article is “The New Anti-Coal Rules Will Cut Jobs and Hurt the Economy” which
was published in New York in June 2014. The authors John Barrasso and Heidi Heitkamp
studied about the new rule which restrict the amount of carbon dioxide produced by
existing power plants. These studies have estimated that this rule would lead to certain job
losses, with one study by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce estimating that an aggressive
carbon policy would eliminate hundreds of thousands of jobs by forcing coal-fired power
plants to shut down.
The second article is “The Future of Coal: Imagining Coal Without Air Pollution” which
also was published in New York in in 2014. Two authors Rebecca Smith and John Miller
claimed that the agency’s early efforts have resulted in important gains. The U.S. had its
own encounters with choking pollution several decades ago. Though nearly forgotten
today, the incidents sparked the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency and
federal regulations that have reshaped the electricity industry — then and now the country’s
largest industrial source of air pollution.
The environmental impact of the coal industry includes issues, which are also given in the
book ”Business, Government, and Society – A managerial Perspective, Text and Cases”,
such as land use, waste management, water and air pollution, caused by the coal mining,
processing and the use of its products. For example, there is formation of sulphuric acid
when the minerals are oxidized with air. This will lead to formation of acidic rain that may
corrode the roofs of the houses in the neighborhood and also increase the acidity of the soil
