Pat Dollard | Young Americans

From today:

Palin Attacks Obama On Wanting To Bankrupt The Coal Production Industry

also

Obama Tells San Francisco He Will Bankrupt The Coal Industry - With Video

WaPo
November 2, 2008

SCRANTON, Pa. — Campaigning in coal-rich Pennsylvania, GOP presidential nominee John McCain pledged this afternoon that if elected president, he would ensure that the U.S. exports coal overseas — something that U.S. policy already permits.

At the same time, the McCain campaign and Republican National Committee reportedly launched robocalls in Ohio, Pennsylvania and other coal states attacking Sen. Barack Obama’s position on coal.

Mocking Obama for a comment he made in an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle in January — “The only thing I’ve said with respect to coal, I haven’t been some coal booster,” Obama had said — McCain promised the audience at the University of Scranton that he’s been a proud coal cheerleader in the past, and plans to be one in the future.

“My friends, you know what Senator Obama said about a year ago, he said he had not been a, quote, coal booster,” he said, as the crowd booed. “My friends, I’ve been a coal booster and it’s going to create jobs, and we’re going to export coal to other countries and we are going to create hundreds of thousands of jobs. That’s going to help restore the economy of the great state of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.”

In practice, coal exports amount to a tiny fraction the coal produced in the U.S. According to the Energy Information Administration, only 2 percent of overall U.S. coal production was exported in 2007. But the coal issue is one Republicans hope will resonate as they seek to close the gap in Ohio and Pennsylvania.

ABC News reported this afternoon that the McCain campaign and RNC are making robocalls in Ohio, Pennsylvania and other coal-producing states warning against Obama as inadequately supportive of coal. “I’m calling on behalf of John McCain and the RNC to tell you that coal jobs, which are so important to our community are in jeopardy,” says the voice on the robocall, which goes on to accuse Obama of planning “to bankrupt the coal industry.”

Like McCain, the calls are making an issue of Obama’s January remarks to the Chronicle while discussing his cap-and-trade program. “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,” Obama had said, according to a transcript from Newsbusters.org, a project of the conservative Media Research Center.

Some environmental advocates questioned why McCain — who spoke frequently about the need to curb climate change during the primary season but has largely jettisoned that line in favor of one touting oil drilling — is pushing for increased coal production, since it’s one of the main drivers of global warming.

“U.S. coal exports is a way for the U.S. to export global warming pollution,” said Dan Weiss, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress Action Fund, in an interview. “Instead, we should be exporting wind and solar technology.”