OPINION:
Coal will face a rocky future if President Obama has his way. The black stuff that has powered the world for eons is not “green,” and that is all that matters for the “progressive” masterminds of the 21st century. They favor more ethereal forms of energy from Mother Nature’s bounty like the sunshine and breezes that accompany a perfect day. But for the billions of human beings around the world who live hand to mouth and the 14.5 percent of Americans existing below the poverty line, the anti-coal campaign promises to make energy more expensive. Dimming humanity’s hopes is not the path to a brighter future.
Last week, the president winged his way across the Atlantic in gas-guzzling Air Force One to join other G7 leaders in making a pledge to abandon the use of fossil fuels by the end of the century. “We commit to doing our part to achieve a low-carbon global economy in the long-term, including developing and deploying innovative technologies striving for a transformation of the energy sectors by 2050,” their closing communique read. Coal and its carbon cousin oil, which are said to emit clouds of heat-trapping carbon dioxide, won’t be welcome in a world where skies are always blue, or ought to be.
The G7 heads of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States (it had been the G8 until Russia roared into Ukraine) practiced their harmony of purpose among the mountain splendor of the German Alps. Group members are readying for a full-throated endorsement of the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris in December, when they hope to ink a legally binding deal that would obligate signatories to reduce greenhouse gases in order to limit global temperatures to 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
Toward that end, the Obama Environmental Protection Agency is set to launch its Clean Power Plan, which would force the United States to do its part by reducing carbon-dioxide emissions to 30 percent below 2005 levels by 2030, mostly by banning coal-burning power plants in 12 states. The EPA moved a step closer to implementing its new regulation, set to take effect in August, when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit dismissed a challenge this week from 15 states and a handful of energy firms that claimed the agency’s plan oversteps its regulatory authority. The court did not rule on the merits of the complaint but simply found it premature to challenge a regulation that had not yet taken effect.
By ramming through the Clean Power Plan, Mr. Obama would fulfill a campaign pledge he made when he said, “So if somebody wants to build a coal power plant, they can. It’s just that it will bankrupt them because they are going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that’s being emitted.” More importantly, the rule would make it difficult for his Oval Office successor to put the green-energy genie back in the bottle.
Fighting a rear-guard action on behalf of American consumers, House Republicans have introduced the Ratepayer Protection Act, which would extend the deadline for states to comply with the new rule, and it would exempt any state whose governor determined that compliance would drive up electricity costs for residential, industrial and commercial ratepayers, or would impact the reliability of the state’s power grid. Though unlikely to survive the president’s veto pen, the measure would demonstrate lawmakers’ opposition to cost-blind rulemaking.
Despite a generation of condemnation, coal still provides nearly 40 percent of the nation’s electricity while renewable energy only generates about 14 percent. Cutting off affordable fuel without a realistic replacement is a clean-power fantasy.
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