NPR: The Politics of Coal

The Politics of Coal

John McCain's campaign is seizing on an unscripted comment by Joe Biden to question Barack Obama's commitment to developing clean coal technology. Biden, working a rope line in Maumee, Ohio last week was asked why the campaign supports clean coal when wind and solar power are "flourishing." Biden says, "We're not supporting clean coal," later adding, "No coal plants here in America." (At the same time, Biden seems to suggest that the US should develop clean coal technology for export, warning, "Guess what, China is going to burn 300 years of bad coal unless we figure out how to clean their coal up.")

The McCain campaign quickly announced the formation of a "Coalition to Protect Coal Jobs," during a conference call with Congresswoman Shelly Moore Capito (R-WV), former Congressman Scott McInnis (R-CO), RNC Chairman Mike Duncan, and former Virginia Governor and Senator George Allen (who knows how damaging an unscripted YouTube moment can be).

For its part, the Obama campaign insists it does support investment in clean coal technology, as part of its ten-year, $150 billion dollar initiative to develop clean energy of all kinds. (McCain proposes $2 billion per year in federal subsidies for clean coal, plus more limited funding for "basic research" on wind, tide, and solar energy.) "The Obama-Biden Department of Energy is committed to developing five 'first-of-a-kind' commercial scale coal-fired plants with carbon capture and sequestration here in the United States," says Biden spokesman David Wade.

Coal generates a lot of political heat because it supplies more than half the nation's electricity, is a significant contributor of greenhouse gases, and because five of the leading coal-producing states (Pennsylvania, Virginia, Colorado, New Mexico, and Ohio) are battlegrounds in the November election.

-- Scott Horsley

UPDATE: The Obama-Biden campaign has now announced the creation of a "Clean Coal Jobs Task Force, aimed at furthering Senator Obama and Senator Biden's commitment to creating jobs and energy independence through clean coal."

2:36 PM ET | 09-23-2008 | permalink

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Perhaps I'm missing something, but it crosses my mind that there's a finite amount of coal and the length of time it takes to make coal (the way nature made the coal we're using) means it's impractical as a renewable resource. So we'd delay finding a renewable energy source by spending the money on a non-renewable energy source. But, hey, it's clean and we'd save jobs rather than taking the gamble of creating them.

When will this country and its supposed leaders begin to think strategically rather than staying bogged down in the politics of immediate gratification?

Sent by Stephen McAllister | 3:32 PM ET | 09-23-2008

You forgot to mention West Virginia!

Yes - wild, wonderful West Virginia where mountaintop coal mining has entirely and permanently destroyed a 1000's of square of the Southern Appalachians, filled in 100's of miles of once lush trout streams, and sent 10's of 1000's of people packing to somewhere where blasting flyrock does fly right into their homes killing childre - where coal slurry floods don't sweep down the valley wiping everyone out - where constant dust and round-the-clock night-light mining doesn't drive you insane - and where coal industry INTIMIDATION doen't threaten their your life each and every day. Watch empty houses around you "mysteriously" catch on fire by the week and you'll sign the coal company buyouts of your now-worthless property immediately!

Have any of you seen this area? Just got to www.ilovemountains.org, sit back and watch the show! From a plane it looks like the Sahara Desert smack in the middle of God's green mountains - only with untold toxins and dead rivers flowing from it.

And very, very few actual jobs - takes 3 men to run a "big john" excavator the size of a city block, a few truck drivers who take it the train and away it goes - while Coal executives sit on the beach in Rio de Janeiro! Wow...if only WE were as patriotic as these coal executives! Or as wealthy.

Coal IS A CURSE that we need to rid ourselves of. The best we can do is make it ultra efficient and I can promise you - my free-unds - that McCain isn't going to do anything to stop coal companies from ruining our mountain neighbors lives and our air with toxic mercury fallout.

Sent by Kevin Caldwell | 3:52 PM ET | 09-23-2008

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