War on Coal = War on Freedom — D.C. McAllister

 

In 2008, President Obama told the San Francisco Chronicle, “If somebody wants to build a coal-fired power plant, they can. It’s just that it will bankrupt them.” 

Obama’s Climate Action Plan clearly states his opposition to coal: “Going forward, we will promote fuel-switching from coal to gas for electricity production.”

To achieve this goal, the president wants to issue executive orders for more regulations under the Clean Air Act. The fact that such regulations will hurt Americans doesn’t matter. By 2025, 300 of America’s coal plants will close due to EPA policies. The result will be a loss of 44,000 magawatts of generating capacity in 22 states. Electricity rates will skyrocket, just as Obama said, causing instability across the grid.

White House Adviser John Podesta said Monday that Congress couldn’t stop Obama from unilaterally enacting policies that will fight global warming. He said the president is committed to using executive orders to pass regulations under the Clean Air Act to limit carbon dioxide emissions. 

Republicans and a few Democrats have opposed Obama’s global warming initiatives because of the negative impact the regulations will have on the coal industry, but Podesta coolly said that those efforts will fail.

Clearly, the loss of jobs and the skyrocketing prices—real human suffering—don’t matter. 

“We’re getting the living crap beaten out of us,” West Virginia Democratic Senator Joe Manchin said. “There has been nothing more beat up than coal.” 

That’s true, but what’s really being beaten up by the Obama Administration is freedom. Energy independence means people are less dependent on the federal government—and America has the resources and the capability to be energy independent. From coal to nuclear to fracking—and to a number of other energy sources in between—America could experience energy independence today if government would just get out of the way.

But it won’t. Why? Why is it that whenever we come close to energy independence, big government environmentalists find a way to put a monkey wrench into it—and without the science to back up their claims? The reason has nothing to do with safety or “clean water” or “clean air.” It has to do with freedom. That’s what they really oppose. That’s what they hate. That’s what they’re afraid of.

Obama and others of his ilk want to control the American people. They want power. You can’t control people who are living free independent lives—and energy is central to that freedom. Control energy production and you control everything. As Baron Harkonnen said in Frank Herbert’s Dune, “He who controls the Spice controls the universe!”

The fact that Obama is willing to act like a tyrant, issuing executive orders to force EPA regulations on the American people, proves this fact. He’s not interested in clean energy production or the safety of the American people. He’s concerned about one thing: growing government control over the states and over individuals.

Obama’s war on coal isn’t about global warming. It’s about power — Obama’s power. It’s about tyranny. If we lose sight of that, we will lose the war. We will lose our liberty.

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  1. Proud Skeptic Inactive
    Proud Skeptic
    @ProudSkeptic

    Another wonderful opportunity for the Republicans (to blow).

    The message can be clear and concise. 

    Twenty years ago many countries entered into the Kyoto Protocol.  The US stayed out of it and with good reason.  Now, two decades later by just doing what we do naturally…being competitive and working to improve our quality of life… the US has lowered its CO2 emissions by 20 percent.  Europe, which has poured billions into green energy has failed to lower their emissions by even a single percent.  In fact they are going up. 

    Germans are paying 40 cents a kilowatt hour for electricity…along with some of the highest taxes in the world.  Is that the president’s goal for us?  After doing our part, is the president saying we now have to lower emissions further so that Europeans can continue with their failed policies?  Why on Earth should we do that?

    How about the people in this country who make their living producing coal?  How should they feel about sacrificing the quality of their lives to subsidize other countries’ failed green initiatives?  Maybe instead of asking our people to accept less, we should look to Europe to do better.

    • #1
  2. Stad Coolidge
    Stad
    @Stad

    Two comments:

    1) Having worked in the nuclear business for a long time, I cringe whenever I see industry leaders tout nuclear power (at the expense of coal) as a solution to man-made global warming, because it means they are accepting the premise that man-made global warming is real (I’m firmly convinced it is a bald-faced, pseudo-scientific lie).  We should be selling nuclear power on its merits without relying on a phony premise.

    2) I’m leery about switching electrical production over to natural gas so quickly.  While it is cheap now, something may happen that drastically raises the price after new natural gas plants are built – such as government regulation.

    • #2
  3. Proud Skeptic Inactive
    Proud Skeptic
    @ProudSkeptic

    Stad:

    Two comments:

    1) Having worked in the nuclear business for a long time, I cringe whenever I see industry leaders tout nuclear power (at the expense of coal) as a solution to man-made global warming, because it means they are accepting the premise that man-made global warming is real (I’m firmly convinced it is a bald-faced, pseudo-scientific lie). We should be selling nuclear power on its merits without relying on a phony premise.

    2) I’m leery about switching electrical production over to natural gas so quickly. While it is cheap now, something may happen that drastically raises the price after new natural gas plants are built – such as government regulation.

    Both good points.  On nuclear…unfortunately, there is no way to win the “scientific” argument on this.   Better to use an approach that avoids this pitfall.

    I worked as a project engineer on the construction of a power plant many years ago.  During construction it switched from coal to oil then back to coal as the price changed for each.  Switching fuels is nothing new.

    • #3
  4. robertm7575@gmail.com Member
    robertm7575@gmail.com
    @

    Every Red State governor/legislature in the country needs to enact laws similar to what Wyoming did during the crazed wake of the gun debate after Sandyhook.  They need to tell federal regulators that any attempt to regulate GHG via Executive Order will be arrested by state law enforcement.

    • #4
  5. Nick Stuart Inactive
    Nick Stuart
    @NickStuart

    Why is Manchin still a Democrat? Why do the people of West Virginia keep electing him?

    • #5
  6. jmelvin Member
    jmelvin
    @jmelvin

    Stad:

    Two comments:

    1) Having worked in the nuclear business for a long time, I cringe whenever I see industry leaders tout nuclear power (at the expense of coal) as a solution to man-made global warming, because it means they are accepting the premise that man-made global warming is real (I’m firmly convinced it is a bald-faced, pseudo-scientific lie). We should be selling nuclear power on its merits without relying on a phony premise.

    As a current industry insider, every time I hear the nuclear pitch for “clean low carbon electricity” to save the world from “climate change” I cringe.  I’m very much of the mind that nuclear power can be sold on its own merits, in a blended mix of other electrical power sources.  The least I can do is actively withhold money from PACs that push this tripe and explain why when asked.

    • #6
  7. jmelvin Member
    jmelvin
    @jmelvin

    Nick Stuart:

    Why is Manchin still a Democrat? Why do the people of West Virginia keep electing him?

     Manchin is still a Democrat, because at his heart he is a Democrat, but perhaps a centrist on various issues like many West Virginians.  He has only been elected to one full term in the senate, after taking Robert Byrd’s place after his death in 2010.

    • #7
  8. Sister Inactive
    Sister
    @Sister

    Here’s a lovely video from Phelim McAleer, Energy Matters.

    • #8
  9. Hartmann von Aue Member
    Hartmann von Aue
    @HartmannvonAue

    And here are some comments from the Heartland Institute: https://heartland.org/press-releases/2014/04/29/heartland-institute-experts-react-supreme-court-ruling-epa-air-pollution-r

    I already contacted my congressman (John Carter) and Senators (Cruz and Cornyn) about this challenging them to draft legislation to make Podesta eat his words. I would like to see the RNC take this issue up as once of the arrows in its quiver for November.  Imagine a TV ad featuring an operating theater, surgery in full progress…and a rolling brown-out hits:

    Lead Surgeon: Tell the managing engineer we need to switch to our generator.
    Bureaucrat: I’m sorry. Your state has used up all of its carbon credits for this month. 
    Mrs. Wilson (on operating table): **cough, gasp** why did they shut down the power plant?….
    Bureaucrat (now sporting prominent Obama/Democrats logo on shirt): Now, Mrs. Wilson, you know coal is bad for the environment, don’t you?
    Mrs. Wilson: **cough, gasp** my ventilator! ….**cough, rattle***
    Lead Surgeon: Anna, Anna!! Stay with me….
    Bureaucrat: We all have to make sacrifices for the good of the planet, Mrs. Wilson…

    Fade to black to sounds of coughing….

    • #9
  10. tabula rasa Inactive
    tabula rasa
    @tabularasa

    Like most people, I want reasonable steps to be taken to assure that the land isn’t covered in soot from the burning of coal.  In America, we have largely succeeded in avoiding the downsides of coal.

    But people need to ask themselves what kind of world we’d be living in in the absence of coal. The vast majority of us would still be engaged in subsistence farming.  We would live shorter lives, and for the years we were alive life would be darker and colder and hungrier.

    No coal and no oil:  no modern civilization.  The war on coal is blind stupidity.

    • #10
  11. user_536506 Member
    user_536506
    @ScottWilmot

    He’s not interested in clean energy production or the safety of the American people. He’s concerned about one thing: growing government control over the states and over individuals.

    Obama’s war on coal isn’t about global warming. It’s about power — Obama’s power. It’s about tyranny. If we lose sight of that, we will lose the war. We will lose our liberty.

    Exactly right DC. The arrogance of Obama, Podesta, and all the other sycophants is infuriating. They detest people unlike themselves (e.g., coal miners, oil-field workers, “clingers”, etc.). They will one day push too far, and the good American people, who have not lost sight of this fact, will push back. Even though the shine of their “brilliance” wore off long ago, people are just now starting to see this. I pray for a good walloping this November and a knockout punch in 2016.

    Thanks for this reminder – keep up the fight.

    • #11
  12. user_138562 Moderator
    user_138562
    @RandyWeivoda

    At this point wind and especially solar are thought to be wonderful by the greenies, even though they have to be subsidized and are still more costly to the consumer than traditional sources. I predict that if some company makes a scientific breakthrough that makes solar power cheaply there will be two consequences.  First they will be lauded.  Then when they and the power plant operators start making big profits, the greenies will find some reason to hate solar power.  If it has to be subsidized it must be good.  If it doesn’t need a subsidy and actually generates profits it is BAD.

    • #12
  13. user_82762 Inactive
    user_82762
    @JamesGawron

    DC,

    The full magnitude of the “Environmental Obsession” that has gripped this country for forty years is now becoming evident.  Millions of jobs lost, trillions of dollars of GNP destroyed, and billions of lives in this country and around the globe stunted.  There is no Global Warming.   We must realize we have murdered our coal industry, crippled our automotive industry, and destroyed our basic manufacturing all over a ‘bad dream’.

    We must tap into the growing frustration with an insane government that clings to its environmental psychotic obsessions and crushes the economic health of the country and resolve to fight these idiots.

    Regards,

    Jim

    • #13
  14. user_105642 Member
    user_105642
    @DavidFoster

    George Orwell:

    Our civilization, pace Chesterton, is founded on coal, more completely than one realizes until one stops to think about it. The machines that keep us alive, and the machines that make machines, are all directly or indirectly dependent upon coal. In the metabolism of the Western world the coal-miner is second in importance only to the man who ploughs the soil. He is a sort of caryatid upon whose shoulders nearly everything that is not grimy is supported.

    And here’s the great French scientist, Sadi Carnot, writing in 1824:

    To take away England’s steam engines to-day would amount to robbing her of her iron and coal, to drying up her sources of wealth, to ruining her means of prosperity and destroying her great power. The destruction of her shipping, commonly regarded as her source of strength, would perhaps be less disastrous for her.

    • #14
  15. Stad Coolidge
    Stad
    @Stad

    The ice storm in February hit our area hard, with many folks without power for two, three, four days, even longer (ours was out for 62 hours).  It made a lasting impression on many people just how much being able to flip a switch is much more than a mere convenience (think heat, water for drinking and flushing if you have a well).

    My worry is that many Americans will have to suffer the extended loss of electric power as coal plant after coal plant is shut down, before they realize how dumb a decision it is to go off coal.  Even if the loss of power is made up for by wind and solar farms, those electricity sources are held hostage by the weather.

    • #15
  16. jmelvin Member
    jmelvin
    @jmelvin

    Those extended power outage should not only impress upon the public the convenience of having reliable power available, but if they have home generators they will also become well aware of how expensive it can be to generate power on their own.  I’m happy to have a generator for emergency power, but it sure hits the old wallet pretty hard to use it for extended periods.

    • #16
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