Remember when Barack Obama told the world that he would bankrupt the coal industry? It was in January 2008, as he was facing Hillary Clinton in a race to be the Democrats' 2008 presidential nominee:
You know, I voted against the Clear Skies Bill. In fact I was the deciding vote, despite the fact that I’m a coal state and that half of my state thought I'd thoroughly betrayed them. Because I think clear air is critical and global warming is critical…
The Illinois senator then went on to lay out his plan for ending carbon emissions that are attributed to coal plants – a system of capping the allowed emissions and fining companies that break those caps. Those fines would then go to subsidize cleaner, greener energy sources. He told the San Francisco Chronicle this:
So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can. It’s just that it will bankrupt them because they’re going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that’s being emitted.
Indeed, the coal industry's largest coal producer filed for Chapter 11 this week. Investor's Business Daily wrote a scathing editorial about the situation Thursday, which Illinoisans concerned about the coal industry will find interesting, as will the millions throughout the Midwest whose electricity is derived from coal-burning plants:
Another coal giant in America, Peabody Energy Corp., declared bankruptcy this week. This bankruptcy filing follows similar actions by Arch Coal Inc., Alpha Natural Resources Inc., and other coal producers that have filed for Ch. 11 protection from creditors.
The ideologues in the White House must be uncorking the champagne. They wanted this to happen. It was the intended result of lawsuits and burdensome regulations by the Obama-era Environmental Protection Agency, which declared war on coal from the day Obama entered office. This was a key component of the anti-carbon agenda of the climate change fanaticism that pervades this White House.
Ideas have consequences. Obama has succeeded in decimating whole towns across America — from Wyoming to Virginia to Pennsylvania — dependent on coal. An estimated 31,000 coal miners, truckers, engineers, construction workers and others have lost their jobs since 2009 as a result of this global warming jihad. Another 5,000 or so could be given pink slips at Peabody. To the left, these lives ruined is acceptable collateral damage for their utopian dream of saving the planet.
The victims here aren’t rich fat cats. They are middle class workers whose lives have been turned upside down by the Big Green Machine.
Investors have gotten crushed too as a result of coal’s demise. The coal industry has lost more than $30 billion in stock value since 2009 — with many of these losses in pension funds and 401(k) plans.
The rest is HERE.
