Photo Illustration: Shoshana Gordon/Axios. Photo: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
Sen. Mitch McConnell's retirement marks the departure of one of coal's biggest champions, Nick and Chuck write.
Why it matters: McConnell, a fierce defender of Kentucky's coal industry, was at the forefront for the GOP in virtually every energy battle of the past two decades.
Driving the news: McConnell, 83, announced Thursday that he won't seek reelection in 2026.
- He led the Senate GOP from 2007 until last month.
- "The Senate is still equipped for work of great consequence, and to the disappointment of my critics, I'm still here on the job," he said on the floor.
Flashback: He was among the top voices decrying former President Obama's "war on coal" and in portraying the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill as a "light-switch tax."
- "I don't think putting clamps on our economy when you know the Chinese and the Indians are not going to do it is a good idea," he told Fox News in 2009.
- He touted his work in those fights in a 2019 op-ed and said he was "committed to helping coal communities plan for the future with training and employment services as well as economic development."
As GOP leader, he was a highly disciplined political operator.
- "The idea of an off-the-cuff comment is anathema to him," Louisville Courier-Journal columnist John David Dyche wrote in a 2009 biography.
More recently, McConnell led GOP messaging on the Green New Deal and Democratic climate policies, forcing a floor vote on Sen. Ed Markey's resolution in 2019.
- Most Democrats — including Markey — voted "present" in protest.
- But McConnell was also instrumental in passing the IIJA, despite opposition from much of the GOP conference.
The bottom line: As the late Sen. John McCain once said, "There are few things more daunting in politics than the determined opposition of Sen. McConnell."
