How difficult can it be to create cleaner coal burning technology? There is so much of the stuff in so many places that it is a waste not to try to develop ways to use it without choking!
Burning coal is already pretty darn clean; we scrub the sulfur out of the emissions and precipitate the particulates. That’s old news. What’s new is Fedzilla decreeing that carbon dioxide is a pollutant, based on the insane ramblings of Algore and the Earth Worshipers. Since coal is essentially carbon, its primary exhaust gas is carbon dioxide. This we cannot have. Kill the humans in West Virginia, save the polar bears. Or some such drivel.
Coal’s not that dirty to begin with.
And their focus is on carbon dioxide, not particulates or certain sulfur compounds (the latter of which makes them similar to volcanoes in that respect, but on a far, far smaller scale).