BY RYAN ALEXANDER
A few months ago, I wrote in this space about the likely bankruptcy of one of the largest coal producers in the country, Arch Coal, and what that meant for taxpayers. Normally a company going bankrupt does not have significant implications for federal taxpayers, except in the case of coal companies that have abandoned mines someone else has to clean up. Unfortunately, the story of coal industry bankruptcies continues (almost 50 coal companies have gone bankrupt since 2012) with the imminent demise of the largest coal producer in the U.S., the St. Louis-based Peabody Energy.