As noted earlier, Wyoming coal mines enjoy extremely high rates of productivity, so the jobs lost in northern Appalachia and the Midwest were not gained in Wyoming. While the coal communities of the Midwest and northern Appalachia have been struggling to cope with the loss of jobs resulting from the 1990 Clean Air Act amendments, electric utilities have been faced with new demands from regulators to further reduce emissions. The U.S. Department of Energy recently embarked on a program to research and develop technologies to capture and sequester carbon gases, but the expectation is that these technologies will not be available until 2015-2020 at the earliest. It is widely recognized that efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions before such technologies are available are likely to lead to significant reductions in domestic coal use. Although coal employment has declined substantially in the last twenty years, coal is still an important economic engine in coal field communities.
Coal mining tends to occur in isolated rural areas with little alternative employment opportunities.
The primary jobs at coal mining companies, railroads and coal-burning utilities tend to be among the highest paying jobs in the community. These jobs not only provide high wages, but tend to have full benefits, including health care and retirement benefits. Coal provides an important source of state revenue in major coal producing states, but the effect of coal on government financing is felt most in counties that are heavily reliant on coal. Coal, as a basic industry, ripples through the economy providing economic benefits to workers and businesses that directly relate to the coal industry, such as equipment manufacturers, materials suppliers, utilities and transportation companies. In addition, coal wages ripple through the economy providing revenue and jobs in unrelated service industries as the workers spend their income to provide for their families.