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Obama-Biden Spell Disaster for Coal Industry

Filed under: Barack Obama, Environment, 2008 President, Energy

Buckeye State Blog, Daily Kos and others realize that Coal is huge issue now and so have been pushing the false equivalence of the McCain and Obama cap and trade proposals.

Huffington Post has a great post about why this manufactured outrage is complete nonsense and is a must-read. But it hits on a point that I’ve been making that has largely been ignored by Bizzyblog. It’s entire hypocritical for McCain and Palin to attack Obama for supporting cap and trade as a way to regulate greenhouse gas emissions when McCain and Palin support the same policy.

Remember how John McCain has been saying he was a “maverick” because he stood up to the Bush Administration on the issue of greenhouse gases? He’s been referring to an amendment he and Joe Lieberman were pushing three years ago to promote “clean coal” technologies, just like Obama wants to do. And who was standing up to the Maverick(TM) in the Senate? None other than our own Senator George Voinovich who said on the floor of the U.S. Senate that McCain’s amendment would put coal out of business.

Really? The same exact policy? Let’s go to Robert B. Reich, the Clinton Economic Advisor:

Robert Reich’s Blog: Why McCain’s “Cap-and-Trade” Won’t Work Nearly as Well as Obama’s

With McCain now on board for a “cap-and-trade” system, it’s a certainty that we’ll have a president next year who wants to address global warming by imposing an overall cap on U.S. carbon emissions, which will drop annually. The “trade” part of the equation is that companies finding efficient ways to cut emissions can sell the unused portions of their permits to others.

But look more closely and you see a big difference between McCain and Obama (and HRC, for that matter)on how the permits are allocated. McCain’s proposal would give the lion’s share to companies that are now the biggest polluters. This does have some logic to it: after all, as the overall cap tightens each year, the biggest polluters face the largest challenges in cutting emissions.

By contrast, Senators Obama and Clinton have both proposed allocating permits through an auction. Under this system, every company - large or small - would have to buy rights to pollute. As a result, the biggest polluters would have to pay the most - thereby providing them with the greatest incentive to cut emissions right from the start. This makes more sense. …

So next time you hear about cap-and-trade, ask the all-important question: How are the permits allocated? A carbon auction gets my bid.

Get that?

McCain’s cap and trade plan would essentially grandfather in current industries that depend on coal. That means that the coal plants that currently power Cincinnati would not be leveled any new tax. But under Obama’s plan all coal reliant industries would have to participate in an auction for a limited number of permits. The highest bidders pass the increased permit cost (a TAX for those of you in Rio Linda) on to the consumer of the electricity, whether it goes for computers, washing machines, or recharging your Prius.

Low bidders are out of business, which is the whole idea. Either way the coal industry is impacted hard and immediately. Voinovich is correct that both of these cap and trade ideas are hard on the coal industry, but don’t let the false equivalence comparison fool you. Obama’s plan is, by his admission, much more aggressive than either of the other candidates:

What I’ve said is that we would put a cap and trade system in place that is as aggressive, if not more aggressive, than anybody else’s out there.

Did Obama say his plan was “the same” as McCain’s… uh no he did not. And this is why the Ohio Coal Association is so freaked out by the idea of an Obama presidency:

“Regardless of the timing or method of the release of these remarks, the message from the Democratic candidate for President could not be clearer: the Obama-Biden ticket spells disaster for America’s coal industry and the tens of thousands of Americans who work in it.

“These undisputed, audio-taped remarks, which include comments from Senator Obama like ‘I haven’t been some coal booster’ and ‘if they want to build [coal plants], they can, but it will bankrupt them’ are extraordinarily misguided.

“It’s evident that this campaign has been pandering in states like Ohio, Virginia, West Virginia, Indiana and Pennsylvania to attempt to generate votes from coal supporters, while keeping his true agenda hidden from the state’s voters.

“Senator Obama has revealed himself to be nothing more than a short- sighted, inexperienced politician willing to say anything to get a vote. But today, the nation’s coal industry and those who support it have a better understanding of his true mission, to ‘bankrupt’ our industry, put tens of thousands out of work and cause unprecedented increases in electricity prices.

100 points to the first member of Ohio’s media to get a statement from Ohio Democratic Governor Ted Strickland, who hails from coal country and supported Hillary Clinton, heck, any Ohio Democrat on this subject.

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