WASHINGTON, D.C. — West Virginia energy workers and their supporters will be among the thousands of people who are expected on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. Tuesday morning for the national “Rally For American Energy Jobs.”
Among those making the trip is Tim McLean, vice president of operations for Walker Machinery in Kanawha County, who said what happens in the coal industry directly affects his company.
“Our company, historically, which is going to be 60 years old this year, we have gone as well as the industry goes,” said McLean. “When it’s going well, we do well and, when the coal industry is not doing well, we suffer from that, as well as all people in West Virginia.”
He said Walker Machinery is doing “okay,” in today’s current coal climate with challenges from the natural gas industry and the Environmental Protection Agency, but could be doing better.
Among Walker’s customers, “(There’s) Doom and gloom when it comes to the sale of new equipment. There’s very little opportunity, very little appetite by the industry, to make the capital investment today for new equipment,” McLean said on Monday’s MetroNews “Talkline.”
Tuesday’s “Rally for American Energy Jobs” is scheduled to run from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. on the west side of the U.S. Capitol.