Obama Mobilizes EPA Troops for War on Coal

instituteforenergyresearch ^

[newbie2008]

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Institute for Energy Research President (IER) Thomas J. Pyle issued the following statement today in response to the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) decision to place a strict and indefinite moratorium on new mountaintop mining projects—a decision about which Democratic Gov. Joe Manchin (W.Va.) and others in the Appalachian region are “very concerned.”

“President Obama has made his intentions to bankrupt the coal industry clear. EPA’s actions this week demonstrate that he will wage a war against the energy source that generates half of America’s electricity and is our nation’s most abundant, reliable, and affordable energy resource.

“Even more dismal are estimates that show how this action will affect the 65,000 members of the Appalachian workforce who stand to lose some of the best, highest-paying jobs available in the region. That’s not to mention the $12 billion in lost economic development that an area already wrestling with our current economic downturn will have to reconcile.

[Mmogamer]

There goes our power bills... through the roof...

[wk4bush2004]

Prepare for our energy costs to skyrocket, people!

It’s good that West Virginia went McCain/Palin, but why did Pennsylvania (which has so many coal miners) go for TOTUS?

Coal is still a very important industry in PA; it bewilders me how PA still went for TOTUS, even after what he said about the coal industry.

I hope people realize now that he wasn’t kidding.....

[RushIsMyTeddyBear]

Yep. Said this yesterday. How many communities will this destroy? How many generations have been in the mining biz?

[Salamander]

Union thumb screws.

[Iam1ru1-2]

Hussein Obama doesn’t want to help America out of a crisis, he’s promoting it so that he can use the power of the gov’t to supposedly get us out of it, but this naive, incompetant, illinois senator knows only the tactics of Chicago...Bully everybody, using his communicator skills to say how bad everything is so that he can use the lie that the only way for America to survive is through “Bigger Gov’t”, taking over banks, businesses, even wallstreet. But being a professional communicator “does not a good president make” as Yoda would put it. If Obama lasts through this year, it will be a miracle because he’s keeps telling everyone that the state of the nation is bad, bad, bad, and now “The chickens have come home to roost” as his mentor and pastor said about America about 9/11.... and so it is......or as Jean-Luc Picard would say it.....”let it be so”.

[Viking2002]

'– Institute for Energy Research President (IER) Thomas J. Pyle issued the following statement today in response to the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) decision to place a strict and indefinite moratorium on new mountaintop mining projects—a decision about which Democratic Gov. Joe Manchin (W.Va.) and others in the Appalachian region are “very concerned.”

“President Obama has made his intentions to bankrupt the coal industry clear. EPA’s actions this week demonstrate that he will wage a war against the energy source that generates half of America’s electricity and is our nation’s most abundant, reliable, and affordable energy resource.'

This may have just been the spark that finally lights the fire. When I was a kid, we'd trip over coal running up and down the ridges back home. We'd dig into surface seams with our fingernails. These mountain Appalachian communities have been left behind for decades, and yanking away the one reliable resource they've had to fall back on in that time may well start a civil insurrection.

[rockinqsranch]

Obama stated during the campaign that he intended to bankrupt the coal industry. W.Virginians still voted for the bastard. Now he is following through with his promise to bankrupt them, put them out of work and we are to sit back and wonder!?

Obama keeps creating artificial impediments to economic recovery with every move he makes. His intent is to bankrupt this Nation.

[tcrlaf]

I have absolutely NO sympathy for anybody in the UMW who are going to lose thier jobs over this...

THEY WERE TOLD that supporting Obama would be economic suicide, but they voted the way the UMW wanted them to, anyway, and even took Union-paid days off to campaign for Obama.

They DESERVE exactly what’s coming to them, though the rest of us are going to have to suffer for thier naivete...

[RicocheT]

Not much of a stimulus for the “65,000 members of the Appalachian workforce who stand to lose some of the best, highest-paying jobs available in the region.” Coal related jobs there are the lifeblood of a lot of towns.

It hurts to be green, especially as the science behind it has been faked. The US falls on the sword of carbon caps and the rest of the world will burn coal and other carbons without limits.

[The_Media_never_lie]

Obama keeps creating artificial impediments to economic recovery with every move he makes. His intent is to bankrupt this Nation.

Exactly, by using the anti-American tools of the left.

[IrishCatholic]

Don’t worry, we will put windmills on the tops of those mountains!

Windmills that we will subsidize and won’t work all the time and aren’t efficient, but we can feel comforted by the fact we are paying five or six times the amount we are paying now.

Will the last sane person turn out the lights?

[wk4bush2004]

“W.Virginians still voted for the bastard”

Huh?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election_in_West_Virginia,_2008

McCain/Palin won West Virginia by 13 points!

Now, other coal-producing states like PA and Ohio are another story...

[Don Corleone]

Where is “Sheets” Byrd on this one? Its his state that is in the crosshairs.

[rockinqsranch]

“McCain/Palin won West Virginia by 13 points!”

Thank you. I sit corrected.

[Red6]

Like in California.

These guys are off their rockers. Coal and nuclear are the answer. Green power does not create jobs, it costs jobs!

When you subsidies things and create artificial market constructs as in much of Europe, what you're ultimately doing is robbing Peter to pay Paul. Of course the costs of these subsidies etc are usually not rolled into the costs when some BS comparison is made.

Here's the bottom line. Without big government paying and artificially financially making these green power alternatives viable, fossil fuels would kick them to hell. When Obama talks of “jobs being created” in this new greener economy, what he's really saying is that we created 100 jobs in a solar power manufacturing plant, but lost 1000 in the coal industry, aluminum plants that left the country because of rising energy costs, etc etc etc. Yes, jobs are created, but the subsidies themselves also represent an opportunity cost, and rising energy costs mean loss of competitiveness and pressure on manufacturing, transportation, and service sectors.

The kids are in charge.

[Dianna]

Obama stated during the campaign that he intended to bankrupt the coal industry.

Then Biden came out and lied to everyone and said they supported the coal industry. Idiots took him at his word.

[rockinqsranch]

“Idiots took him at his word.”

Yes they did.

Biden had also said “there is no such thing as clean coal” which might have given them a hint about his true thinking on the matter eh.

(Yeah I know...I used the word “thinking” in discussion of Joe Biden. My bad ;)

[1COUNTER-MORTER-68]

This may have just been the spark that finally lights the fire.
~~~
Yup,,,it very well could,,,

SWEPCO just put a new unit online here in NW Louisiana,,,

We use locally STRIP-MINED coal,or natural gas from this state,,,

O’Bammy et al ain’t gunna like what happens next if they

wanna skrooo with the heat and power that run this country!

[Red6]

Obama is setting the stage for serious energy issues in the future. No offshore drilling. Expanding the protected areas. Going after coal. Not advancing nuclear even though we are a market leader and export the technology over the world (While China buys our Westinghouse reactors we build windmills)........

The answer according to our government appears to be subsidies, tax credits, and billions in a stimulus bill (more subsidies) all geared at advancing “green” energy. But that's not ideology! That's a free market at work people! That's scientific fact too! Like Global Warming, we're beyond questioning this and we need to spend billions of our tax dollars right now to force “green” power. Like the mortgage crisis which was government created, we are now setting the stage for an energy crisis in the future. I'm sure when we have brownouts like in California nationally we'll get some more of those “Congressional hearings.” You know, where politicians that created the mess hold an inquisition and play class warfare games. Like the Community Reinvestment Act and the following enforcement of certain laws in the early 90s that set the stage for our mortgage crisis today, the stupidity of these decisions will be felt in a decade.

Unbelievable.