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Akron
Beacon Journal…
Romney
and Obama embrace coal
industry
By Sean Cockerham, McClatchy
Newspapers
September 17, 2012
WASHINGTON:
Mitt Romney and
President Barack Obama have wholeheartedly embraced coal on the
campaign trail,
despite past statements from Romney and Vice President Joe Biden that
pollution
from coal-fired power plants kills people.
Coal
has become a major issue in
the presidential campaign, in part because the coal state of Ohio is
among a
handful of states that are expected to decide the election. Romney is
telling
voters that Obama is “waging war on coal,” a cry also taken up by
Republicans
in the House of Representatives, who are putting out pro-coal bills as
a
message. Romney pledges to roll back environmental regulations if he’s
elected.
But
analysts say it’s questionable
how much Romney could do to help a coal industry that’s been hurt more
by
utilities switching to cheap natural gas than by Environmental
Protection
Agency regulations.
“There’s
no good reason for any
utility company to build a new coal power plant right now, with natural
gas
prices being where they are and where they look like they’re going to
be for a
long time,” said Andrew Holland, a senior fellow for energy at the
nonpartisan
American Security Project, a research center.
“Even
if there were no regulations
on coal, I think you’d still be seeing a move toward natural gas.”
Obama,
like his challenger,
nevertheless has talked up coal during the campaign. He highlighted a
vision
for the future during his Democratic National Convention speech in
which the
nation continues to invest in “clean coal” technology meant to reduce
the
carbon dioxide impact of burning coal and keep the industry going.
The
Obama campaign has run radio
ads in Ohio hammering on that theme and portraying Romney as the one
who’s
anti-coal. The ads are about Romney’s 2003 effort, as governor of
Massachusetts, against an unpopular coal plant in his state.
“I
will not create jobs or hold
jobs that kill people,” Romney told the news media at the time. “And
that
plant, that plant kills people.”
Frank
O’Donnell, the president of
the environmental advocacy group Clean Air Watch, said he was taken
aback to
hear the Obama campaign’s ad playing up the coal industry. “I think
that ad
goes to show you that it’s perhaps only a slight exaggeration to say
this
election is about swaying the minds of 11 people in Ohio,” he said.
Ohio
is among the most crucial
prizes in the presidential campaign. The state ranks 10th nationally in
coal production
and generates 86 percent of its electricity from coal. But the
battleground
states of Virginia and Colorado are significant coal-producing regions
as well.
There’s
also a lot of talk in the
nation’s top coal states — Wyoming, West Virginia, Kentucky,
Pennsylvania and
Texas — about what a Romney presidency might mean for coal. The coal
industry
is relatively small, employing just 86,000 people in 2011, according to
the
Bureau of Labor Statistics…
Read
the rest of the article at Akron Beacon Journal
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