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President Trump signs coal bill, but it didn’t happen in the Valley
On the side
U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan of Howland, D-13th, is throwing his support for Democratic National Committee chairman behind Jaime Harrison, South Carolina Democratic Party chairman.
There are seven candidates for the position. The DNC will meet Feb. 25 in Atlanta to select a new party chairman. There are 447 DNC members – and Ryan is not one of them.
“We must avoid the temptation to view the DNC as something it is not,” Ryan said. “The DNC is not a Cabinet department, a congressional office, or a city hall though Democrats with experience in those capacities have equally important roles to play in our comeback. Rather, the DNC is a grassroots party-building organization so we need a leader who knows how to build a party from the grassroots. That leader is Jamie Harrison.”
As it turned out, President Donald Trump signed a bill Thursday that coal supporters say helps the struggling industry.
But instead of doing it in Trumbull County, where it was originally planned, the Republican president had a quick bill-signing ceremony in the Roosevelt Room of the White House.
The event at the Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport in Vienna was supposed to last about 90 minutes.
The actual signing lasted just a few minutes in what the White House described as an “in-town travel pool spray” event.
In political-speak that means very limited reporters and photographers – the “in-town travel pool” – were there momentarily for a brief opportunity to take photos and catch a comment or two. Photographers hold their finger on their camera buttons to get pictures like they’re holding down an aerosol can and “spray.”
While not a lot of people were going to see Trump if he came to Vienna, the White House’s decision to cancel the visit is disappointing to his supporters and likely to some of his detractors who were eager to protest his stop in the Mahoning Valley.
Well, the weather was a typically lousy mid-February day in Northeast Ohio so standing outside protesting a president or waiting to get inside to see him, and driving passed protesters, doesn’t sound terribly appealing.
Why was the trip canceled? One possibility mentioned by a Wall Street Journal reporter was some lawmakers who wanted to be at the signing needed to be in Washington, D.C.
It was on the official White House schedule that I saw Saturday.
It was not only going to be Trump’s first visit to the Valley since he was sworn in as president less than a month ago, it was going to be his first time in Ohio as the president.
Don’t think for a moment that the planned protest had anything to do with Trump’s cancellation.
He wasn’t going to see a single protester unless the Secret Service somehow missed a person carrying a large anti-Trump sign walking into the event which was likely to draw an invitation-only crowd of a few dozen. In other words, it wasn’t going to happen.
As Tracey Winbush, Mahoning County Republican Party vice chairwoman who heads Trump’s election campaign in the county, said, “Protesters don’t make people change their mind. If protesters are going to stop us, then we’re not going to go anywhere.”
It’s been a bad week for Trump.
Michael Flynn was forced to resign as national security adviser after he admitted he had numerous calls with the Russian ambassador to the United States during the transition period and gave “incomplete information” about that to Vice President Mike Pence.
Also, Andy Puzder, the president’s nominee for labor secretary, withdrew with signs showing he was unlikely to gain enough Republican support to be confirmed.
Under those circumstances, a trip to the Midwest to sign a bill in front of a friendly group would be a nice time away from the chaos in Washington.
Instead, Trump’s Thursday included a press conference to announce Alexander Acosta as his new nominee for labor secretary.
Perhaps the most interesting part of Trump’s non visit to the Valley was how he ended up being scheduled to come here.
The bill signed by Trump reverses a rule approved by the Barack Obama administration during the Democrat’s final days as president to limit companies from dumping mining waste in streams. It was a rule that never took effect.
Called the “Stream Protection Rule,” the law required companies to restore mined areas to their original physical and ecological state and to monitor for environmental effects.
The bill was sponsored by U.S. Rep. Bill Johnson of Marietta, R-6th, who represents Columbiana County and southern Mahoning County.
Johnson was to be in Vienna, which is not in his district, for the signing, and was at the White House for the actual event.
Republicans, who control Congress and voted to overturn the regulation, called the rule overregulation and rejecting it protects coal miner jobs.
Democrats say it was a sensible decision and won’t create any coal miner jobs.
The last I checked coal-mining country was in southern Ohio, western Pennsylvania and West Virginia – and not Trumbull County.
One source told me the administration considered coal locations, most notably in Belmont County, where Trump campaigned during the election. But the ease of getting in and out of this area thanks to the Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport and that the Valley is right next to western Pennsylvania led the White House to choose Vienna.
That is, until the White House decided the president wasn’t coming there.
It probably didn’t hurt that Trump was the first Republican presidential candidate to win Democratic-controlled Trumbull County since Richard Nixon in 1972.
Trump received 50.7 percent of the vote to 44.5 percent for Democrat Hillary Clinton, helping him win Ohio and the national election.