The Energy Transition Owes Workers an Answer

Somewhere right now, a utility executive is approving the closure of a coal plant. The paperwork will filter down through the organization over the next few months. The press release will come out in a year or two. The workers will not find out until their jobs are basically already gone.
This is how it works. The decision happens in a boardroom. The consequences happen in a town where the mine was the only employer, where the diner that fed the miners is about to close, where families are about to move away because there is nothing left.
I know those towns. I grew up in one. The kids I went to school with worked weekend shifts at the coal mine in Carbondale. Their dads worked there. Their grandfathers worked there. The mine was the reason the town existed at all.
Those kids are in their forties now. Some of them are still in coal. Many of them are not, because the jobs are not there anymore. And almost none of them got a fair shake in how that transition happened.
Coal America has been hit hard by the modern era, and it is not fair. These are the folks that powered all of this growth that other folks have gotten to benefit from. The electricity that runs Silicon Valley, the lights in Manhattan skyscrapers, the data centers that make your smartphone work: for decades, coal miners made that possible. They went underground so the rest of us could flip a switch.
Now those same communities are stuck in towns with no businesses left on main street and nothing but a Walmart with miles of parking lots. The mine closed. The diner that fed the miners closed. The hardware store that supplied the mine closed. The school lost half its students because families moved away looking for work. What is left is a town-shaped outline of what used to be a community.
This is not a policy paper. I am asking you to understand that we built a system that extracts value from these communities, decade after decade, and then abandons them when the economic winds shift. That is not just unfortunate. It is a policy choice. One we could make differently.
Every utility in America has to get permission from state regulators to charge customers for electricity. This happens through something called a rate case. The utility comes to the public utility commission and says: here’s what it costs us to generate power, here’s what we need to invest in infrastructure, here’s what we need to charge customers to cover those costs and make a reasonable profit.
Rate cases are where the real decisions get made. They determine which power plants get built and which ones get retired. They decide whether a utility invests in solar or keeps running coal. They set the timeline for closures. They determine what happens to workers.
And almost nobody shows up.
Rate cases happen in the state capital. They’re announced in the back pages of newspapers and on regulatory websites that nobody reads. The proceedings use technical jargon that’s designed for lawyers and engineers, not regular people. The schedule is set for business hours, when anyone with a job can’t attend.
So who does show up? The utility, obviously. They have a whole legal team. Industry groups. Sometimes environmental organizations. Occasionally a consumer advocate. But the workers whose jobs are on the line? The communities whose entire economic base is being decided? They’re almost never in the room.
This isn’t an accident. It’s not a conspiracy either. It’s just how bureaucracies work. The people who designed the rate case process weren’t thinking about coal miners in small towns. They were thinking about electricity rates and grid reliability. The human impact was someone else’s problem.
But here’s the thing: rate cases are also where solutions could happen. The same regulatory process that decides to close a plant can require the utility to fund worker transition programs. It can mandate severance packages, retraining funds, early retirement options. It can even require utilities to invest in new economic development in affected communities as a condition of approval.
The mechanism exists. It just doesn’t get used, because the people who would benefit from it don’t know it exists.
## What I Would Say to a Displaced Coal Worker
Someone asked me recently what I would say to a coal worker who just lost their job. Someone who’s angry, who feels left behind, who’s been told for years that the transition will be managed fairly and then watched as their community hollowed out anyway.
Here’s my honest answer: What do I need to get in front of you to get you to pull your kids out of school and drive to the capital to make this complaint in front of decision makers? I can get compensation wrapped into your electricity rate that equals those lost wages, if you show up and VOTE.
That sounds harsh. It’s not meant to be. It’s meant to be real.
The sympathetic response would be to say: I’m so sorry this happened to you, it’s terrible, someone should do something. But sympathy doesn’t pay the mortgage. Sympathy doesn’t fund a pension. Sympathy doesn’t give you health insurance when you’re fifty-two years old and no other employer in your county is hiring.
What pays the mortgage is money. And money flows through political processes. Rate cases. Legislative sessions. Regulatory proceedings. Elections.
The companies affected by these decisions show up. The utilities spend millions on lawyers and lobbyists. The trade associations hire former regulators who know how the system works. They show up because they understand that this is where the money is.
Workers can show up too. And when they do, when they actually get in the room and tell decision makers what’s happening in their communities, things can change. Commissioners are political appointees. They respond to political pressure. They respond to voters.
I’ve seen rate cases where worker testimony changed outcomes. Where regulators added conditions requiring transition funding because actual affected people showed up and demanded it. It doesn’t happen often enough. But it happens.
The problem is that nobody tells workers this is an option. The information about when and where these decisions get made is buried in regulatory filings. The timeline is opaque. The process is intimidating. And by the time most people hear about a plant closure, the decision was made three years ago.
## Dignity at Work
There’s a phrase I keep coming back to: dignity at work.
Workforce transformation succeeds or fails based on whether people have purpose, meaning, and dignity in what they do. You can write all the policy papers you want about “just transition” and “economic diversification.” None of it matters if you’re treating workers like a problem to be solved rather than people with skills and value.
Coal miners know how to work. They know how to show up every day and do hard, dangerous jobs. They know how to solve problems under pressure. They know how to work as a team in conditions where mistakes can be fatal. These are not people who need to be pitied. They need to be respected.
The question isn’t whether displaced workers can learn new skills. Of course they can. The question is whether we’re offering them something worth learning. Whether the new jobs pay enough to support a family. Whether they come with benefits. Whether they’re in places people can actually live.
Too often, “retraining” means a six-week course in solar panel installation followed by a job that pays half what the mine paid, two hours away from your kids’ school. That’s not a transition. That’s abandonment with extra steps.
A real transition would start with what workers actually need: comparable wages, health benefits, pension continuity, jobs in their communities or serious relocation assistance if they have to move. It would treat the timeline honestly, giving people years to prepare rather than months to scramble. It would involve workers in the planning, asking them what they want rather than telling them what they’re getting.
And it would be funded by the same system that’s causing the transition in the first place. Utilities can afford this. The money exists. It’s a matter of political will.
## The Failure is Communication
When I talk to people in the energy industry about worker transition, I hear a lot of excuses. The economics are what they are. We can’t control market forces. Coal is just less competitive than natural gas and renewables now.
All of that is true. And all of it is beside the point.
The failure isn’t that the energy system is changing. The failure is that we’re not communicating well up front what’s going to happen. The failure is keeping information about plant closures and economic impacts wrapped up in technical proceedings that affected communities never hear about. The failure is treating regulatory compliance as the end goal rather than the starting point.
Utilities know which plants they’re going to retire. They know the timeline. They know which communities will be affected. They have this information years in advance.
What if they were required to share it? What if, as a condition of operating in a state, utilities had to provide five-year and ten-year outlooks to affected communities? What if workers got the same information that shareholders get about corporate strategy?
This isn’t radical. It’s just honesty. And it would give workers and communities time to organize, to show up at rate cases, to demand the transition funding they’re entitled to.
## What You Can Do
If you’re reading this and you live in a community affected by energy transition, here’s what I want you to know:
The decisions about your future are being made right now, in state capitals, in rate cases, in regulatory proceedings. The companies involved are showing up. You can too.
Find out when your state’s public utility commission meets. Find out when the next rate case is for the utility that serves your area. Show up. Bring your neighbors. Tell commissioners what’s happening in your community. Demand that transition costs include worker support.
And vote. Vote in state elections, because that’s who appoints utility commissioners. Vote for candidates who understand that the energy transition isn’t just about emissions targets, it’s about people.
The system is rigged in favor of the people who show up. For too long, that’s been corporations and their lobbyists. It doesn’t have to stay that way.
Coal America powered this country’s growth for generations. The people who did that work deserve better than a shrug and a suggestion to learn to code. They deserve answers. They deserve a seat at the table where decisions get made.
And if they show up and demand it, they can get it.