group founded as a countermeasure to environmental protection movements. He later released statements urging Trump to avoid legislation enacting harsher punishment for coal mine supervisors that violate health and safety protocols, saying that "coal supervisors are not criminals", and that harsher laws would not improve mine safety. In 2016, Blankenship supported conservative advocacy groups to remove Democrats from the legislature. That same year, Hillary Clinton's campaign criticized him after he appeared at her campaign stop in Williamson, West Virginia. Climate change Blankenship rejects the scientific consensus on climate change. In a speech at the Tug Valley Mining Institute, he said, "I don't believe climate change is real." Blankenship reiterated his views on global warming in interviews with The Hill and Forbes. In an October 30, 2009, letter to the editor of The Charleston Gazette, Blankenship denied that climate change, or global warming, exists, writing, "Why should we trust a report by the United Nations? The United Nations includes countries like Venezuela, North Korea and Iran." According to Blankenship, "the environmental movement isn't a great cause, it's a great business", and in addition to lying about the Upper Big Branch mine disaster, the government has also lied "about the science of global warming." In 2018, at a Senate campaign town hall, Blankenship said that "climate change is probably a fact", but added that American-made climate change is not, arguing that China's increase in coal production is the reason. Mine safety At a 2009 Labor Day rally in West Virginia, Blankenship said that federal and state mining regulators are ineffective at improving mine safety, and that the mining companies themselves are better suited to the task and should have less oversight, saying, "Washington and state politicians have no idea how to improve miners' safety." Before and during his 2018 Senate campaign, Blankenship blamed the federal regulators of the MSHA for the Upper Big Branch Disaster for directing airflow targets in the mine. Controversies Deborah May A former employee of Blankenship, Deborah May, filed a lawsuit claiming that stress from personal abuse forced her to quit her job in November 2005. The lawsuit claimed that such comparatively minor mistakes as a wrong breakfast order from McDonald's, misplaced ice cream in the freezer, and an improperly hung jacket in the closet caused difficulties with Blankenship. In June 2008, the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals ruled that May was entitled to unemployment benefits because