Lieutenant Governor Daniel Mongiardo was in Pikeville on Tuesday night. Mongiardo spoke at the Pike County Academic/Athletic Hall of Fame at the Mark V.
Mongiardo took the opportunity to speak to those in attendance about the power and importance of coal.
The Hazard native talked about using coal to put Kentucky on the map as a world leader as hard time faces the country.
“Our country faces very tough times right now,” said Mongiardo. “Our economy is not built for $4 per gallon gas prices. It’s devastating the economy and our housing industry is devastated as well. These may be some of the worst times the county has gone through and the future seems bleak for so many people.
“But I think Kentucky is on the verge of becoming national and world leaders in so many areas,” Mongiardo continued. “The rising cost of gas is not a bad thing for Eastern Kentucky, because we stand on a natural resource that could push us to be world leaders in energy. We have 250 to 300 years of coal right here in Eastern Kentucky. If we take advantage of where we are today, in this time of history and take advantage of the opportunities before us and figure out new ways to use coal, we can achieve that. We must figure out how to develop liquid coal that we can burn in our automobiles and planes.”
Mongiardo also noted that as Kentuckians take advantage of the resource at hand, more jobs will come into Kentucky and people will no longer have to leave the state in search of work.
“It’s predicted that 30 percent of jobs in the next 10 years will come from energy,” he said. “If we take advantage of our resources, the jobs will be developed in Kentucky. Instead of seeing kids from Kentucky with educations having to leave the state for jobs, we will be importing people here to work in Kentucky. I don’t think we are too far away from that.”
Mongiardo also was very vocal about his support of mountain top removal mining, stating that we need flat land in order to develop into a national leader.
“A lot of people look at mountain top removal as a negative, but I see it as a positive,” said Mongiardo. “We need to stop apologizing for coal. We don’t want to defend mountain top removal, but I want us to promote mountain top removal, because we need flat land. We can not have economic expansion without places to do things and part of mountain top removal is for places like hospitals, airports and different type of merchants.
“Something else we have been working on for more remote areas is adventure tourism. We can put people on horseback, mountain bikes, foot and four wheelers in eastern Kentucky, which as you and I know, is one of the most beautiful areas in this country. There is no place prettier than going to the top of the hills and looking out across Eastern Kentucky,” he continued.
“I cant wait for people from across the world to come and see what natural resources we have and it’s not in spite of coal but because of coal.”
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