Planet Gore

Obama the Bankrupter

Attention Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, Kentucky, Indiana, and all other states with high coal-industry employment: Obama’s carbon taxes will be high enough to bankrupt coal companies.

Barack Obama actually flat out told the San Francisco Chronicle (SF Gate) that he was willing to see the coal industry go bankrupt in a January 17, 2008 interview. The result? Nothing. Here is an excerpt from the audio interview:

Let me sort of describe my overall policy.

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.
I was the first to call for a 100% auction on the cap and trade system, which means that every unit of carbon or greenhouse gases emitted would be charged to the polluter. That will create a market in which whatever technologies are out there that are being presented, whatever power plants that are being built, that they would have to meet the rigors of that market and the ratcheted down caps that are being placed, imposed every year.

That will also generate billions of dollars that we can invest in solar, wind, biodiesel and other alternative energy approaches.

No story here. Move along.

Again, here’s the audio file, with some helpful graphics on the importance of coal to the U.S. economy.


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