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News-Sentinel.com Your Town. Your Voice.
Opening Arguments

The coal, hard truth

We don't need cap-and-trade legislation to wreck the economy. The EPA can do that all by itself:

While campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination, Barack Obama said his cap-and-trade tax plans would "bankrupt" anyone building a coal-fired power plant. Although those taxes haven't materialized, the Environmental Protection Agency has put the brakes on 79 surface mining permits in four states since he was elected.

The EPA says these permits could violate the Clean Water Act and warrant "enhanced" review. But the agency went even further last week, announcing plans to revoke a permit for the Spruce No. 1 Mine in West Virginia - a move that has caused anxiety among coal-state Democrats about the future of the industry under the Obama administration.

So far, West Virginia, Kentucky, Ohio and Tennessee have been affected. Are you paying attention,

Comments

mark
Mon, 10/26/2009 - 11:52am

Perhaps your newspaper should ask Bayh how he intends to vote on cap and trade and health care, and then report what he says (or doesn't say).

tim zank
Mon, 10/26/2009 - 12:41pm

Mark, If they haven't already, all that get is a non-answer answer anyway. Evan isn't capable of verbalizing "the sky is blue" on a sunny day. You can ask him, but you'll get 3 paragraphs of how different particles in a clear sky can actually appear different shades yada yada yada.....

mark
Mon, 10/26/2009 - 1:27pm

Tim, you are probably correct. But then the newspaper could report on the waffling non-answers to the type of dircet clear questions that journalists know howe to ask..

But better to just wonder whather Bayh is aware of what's being written in other newspapers and speculate about what impact that might have.

Leo Morris
Mon, 10/26/2009 - 2:00pm

Tim is right that it's hard to pin Bayh down. He's one of 10 Democratic senators who signed a letter saying they will vote on an energy bill "only if it protects their states' manufacturing bases." I'm not sure what that means or how you would be able to discerned in the finished legislation. On health care, he says only that he wants to see "practical steps to help small businesses and their workers control skyrocketing costs." It is presumed that he would be against a public option, and some even think (worry or hope, depending) that he might try to blow the whole deal because of his wife's involvement with Wellpoint.

Bob G.
Mon, 10/26/2009 - 2:15pm

Evan Bayh...otherwise know as that leaf blowing in the wind...
Ambiguous doesn't begin to describe his views.

littlejohn
Mon, 10/26/2009 - 3:29pm

In fairness, Bayh's in an awkward position. Imagine being a Democratic senator from Indiana. I suspect it would be a bit like a Republican who somehow got elected to the Senate from Massachussets. A little waffling might be required to keep your job. Consider Mitt Romney's various contortions.

littlejohn
Mon, 10/26/2009 - 3:33pm

Well, I got sidetracked above. I was actually thinking about how sad a state my native West Virginia is in now. It was once a beautiful outdoorsman's paradise. Now it looks like an atomic bomb testing ground. People are so short-sighted. The coal will eventually run out (or lose its economic value). Then tourism, the only thing West Virginia could have fallen back on, will be worthless because the place is a moonscape. I hope Indiana escapes that fate.

gadfly
Mon, 10/26/2009 - 9:58pm

I was shocked to read the piece in the NS from Michael G. Morris, the top dog at AEP actually endorsing the Cap 'n Tax legislation . . . that is until I realized that government-approved monopolies have nothing to lose by billing higher rates to customers since profit dollars are regulated as a percentage of sales.

The logic that EPA can and will impose harsher regulations than this terrible legislation is unacceptable to me on several fronts. The AGW fanatics are just wrong about CO2 and we need to turn away from the statists who will make the U.S. a banana republic.

Obama has pledged to bankrupt the coal industry and DOE chief, Steven Chu has declared "Coal is my worst nightmare.". This is despite the fact that half of all U. S. electric power . . . and all of Indiana's electricity comes from coal-fired generating plants.

Electricity produces the cheapest electricity in America because the environmental whackos have been successful in preventing nuclear plants from being built.

gadfly
Mon, 10/26/2009 - 10:05pm

OOPS. My final sentence in the previous post should read:
"Coal produces the cheapest electricity . . ."

littlejohn
Tue, 10/27/2009 - 6:12am

Gadfly, you have clearly been duped. I see no previous post, at least not under the name gadfly.
At any rate, my cat produces the cheapest electricity. It costs nearly nothing to rub him against an inflated balloon, which will then stick to anything, even the ceiling. Of course, my cat does emit greenhouse gasses.
And hairballs, gadfly; no man should have to see such things. And despite misleading press reports, the creature will not consume lasagna. Clearly we need more truth in media, as the brave Phyllis Schlafly has often pointed out.

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