Sandra Huffman was cleaning St. Luke’s hospital in Quakertown, gloved and maskless, when she got sick last March. It felt as though a film of spiderwebs
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Sandra Huffman was cleaning St. Luke’s hospital in Quakertown, gloved and maskless, when she got sick last March. It felt as though a film of spiderwebs had caked her throat, she said. At 54, she was sleeping upright in bed, breathing through a borrowed nebulizer, and drinking an old family remedy of fat Spanish onions congealed in sugar.
She sold her ’86 Chevy Mallard RV, then her mother’s gold jewelry. By late summer she was collecting cans for scrap metal. Huffman did not know that a federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program, administered by the state, would provide money for people like her until October.
An initiative to combat climate change and invest in renewable energy could generate just short of a quarter-million new Pennsylvania jobs each year, a new report suggests.
The Political Economy Research Institute report, released in partnership with the Keystone Research Center, state union leaders and PennFuture, outlines the benefits of an economic plan created by ReImagine Appalachia – a coalition of left-leaning policy and environmental groups.
ReImagine Appalachia’s blueprint includes measures supported by President Joe Biden in a recent executive order implementing sweeping climate policies. The framework focuses on expanding clean manufacturing in the Ohio River Valley.
“(The blueprint) can give hundreds of thousands of workers in our state good union jobs in clean manufacturing and building electric vehicle charging stations, laying high-speed broadband and upgrading to a smart grid, in sustainable transportation and cleaning up brownfields,” said Pennsylva
Sandra Huffman was cleaning St. Lukeâs hospital in Quakertown, gloved and maskless, when she got sick last March. It felt as though a film of spiderwebs had caked her throat, she said. At 54, she was sleeping upright in bed, breathing through a borrowed nebulizer, and drinking an old family remedy of fat Spanish onions congealed in sugar.
She sold her â86 Chevy Mallard RV, then her motherâs gold jewelry. By late summer she was collecting cans for scrap metal. Huffman did not know that a federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program, administered by the state, would provide money for people like her until October.
The Daily Yonder The Biden Administration Promises to Clean Up Mine Land and Create Jobs in Appalachia. Here Are Some Steps It Can Take. A new administration brings potential to address Appalachia’s economic and environmental issues on a wider scale.
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A landslide near an abandoned mine site in Perry County, Kentucky. (Photo courtesy Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet)
This story was published in partnership with Southerly.
A century of fossil fuel extraction has left Appalachia environmentally and economically degraded. With the coal industry on its last leg and company bankruptcies piling up, taxes that fund crucial public services are drying up; unemployment and poverty are worsening; abandoned mines are polluting and endangering communities.