Steam billows out of U.S. Steel's coke plant on October 25, 2020 in Clairton, Pa. President Trump placed tariffs of foreign-made steel in an effort to revive the steel industry. His efforts have drawn the support of many who work in the plant. While the tariffs succeeded for a short time to push down steel imports, create higher prices for domestic steelmakers, and to expand the workforce by about 6,000 jobs, by the following year those gains nearly disappeared.
Industry
U.S. Steel Clairton Coke Works /
Steam billows out of U.S. Steel's Clairton Coke Works on March 5, 2019 in Clairton, Pa. The coke plant has come under scrutiny after a Dec. 24 fire triggered an air quality alert from the release of sulfur dioxide.
The @lungassociation released its “State of the Air 2019” report and gave Pittsburgh’s metro area an “F” grade for air quality. According to the report, Allegheny County remains the only county in the United States, outside of the state of California, to get failing grades in both soot and ozone categories.
Coal Miner /
“Where Trump goes we all go,” says Kevin Backus, 32, of Mt. Lookout, W.Va., a coal miner at CONSOL Energy’s Harvey Mine in Sycamore, Pa. Backus has worked in coal mining for 10 years.
At the Harvey Mine, most of the miners are supporting President Trump, believing that his rollback of regulations has helped their industry survive.
In the early 1920s, coal miners accounted for 2% of the country’s workforce with over 800,000 miners. Today, there are about 45,000 coal miners left in the U.S. Pennsylvania is one of the nation’s largest coal producing states behind Wyoming and West Virginia, producing about 7% of the the coal.
Shell Cracker Plant /
Shell’s petrochemical refinery, a massive complex that sits along the Ohio River about 30 mies outside of Pittsburgh, will pay nearly $10 million for violations in air emission limits that occurred in the first months of operations at the plant which opened in November. The company suspended production in March for repairs, but planned to restart operations yesterday. When fully operational, the ethane cracker plant will produce 3.5 billion pounds of plastic a year by converting ethane, a component of natural gas, into polyethylene, a common plastic.
Cracker Plant /
An ethane cracker plant sits under construction along the Ohio River in Beaver County, Pa on Thursday, January 17, 2019.
President Donald Trump /
President Donald Trump speaks to an invited crowd of several hundred supporters during an official visit at H&K Equipment, a rental and sales company for specialized material handling solutions in North Fayette, Pennsylvania, on January 18, 2018. Trump visited the facility to talk about the Republican tax reform policy that was passed in late December and to endorse Republican nominee for the 18th Congressional District race, Rick Saccone.
Saccone is running against Democratic nominee Conor Lamb in the special election in the 18th Congressional District to replace Tim Murphy, who resigned in disgrace over a sex scandal. Read more about the President's visit at the Washington Examiner.
Staughton Lynd /
A Coal Mine Opens /
For the last several months, I've been covering Corsa Coal's new coal mine, the Acosta Deep Mine, in Friedens, Somerset County, Pennsylvania as well as the surrounding communities. The mine, which began production in June, created 70 news jobs and is expected to produce over 400,000 tons of metallurgical coal a year. You can read about the mine in the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, the Financial Times, and view more images at Getty Images.
Death's Door Spirits /
I visited Anchor Hocking in Monaca, Pennsylvania to shoot video of the production of bottles for Death's Door Spirits, a premium spirits company based in Middleton Wisconsin.