Britt Weygandt, Western Business Roundtable

A bipartisan coalition of business leaders is calling on Governors, state legislators and Members of Congress publicly express their opposition before tomorrow’s election to proposals to “bankrupt” the U.S. coal industry and threaten to put out of work several hundred thousand Americans who work in coal-related industries. The call was issued by the Western Business Roundtable following news reports that Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama intends to make it so costly to build advanced clean coal power plants with carbon capture and sequestration that it will “bankrupt” any company that tries to do so.

“We are calling upon Democrats, Republicans and Independents from coast to coast to publicly express their support for advanced clean coal power generation and to distance themselves from those who say that we should bankrupt the coal industry,” said Britt Weygandt, Executive Director of the Western Business Roundtable. “A lot of Americans are going to be listening in the next 24 hours to see which elected leaders stand up for clean coal and which don’t.”

Obama’s comments regarding coal were made during an interview with the San Francisco Examiner earlier this year, and is available in streaming audio form here. In the interview, Obama says the following:

“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 percent 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. 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. That will also generate billions of dollars that we can invest in solar, wind, biodiesel and other alternative energy approaches.  The only thing I’ve said with respect to coal, I haven’t been some coal booster. What I have said is that for us to take coal off the table as a (sic) ideological matter as opposed to saying if technology allows us to use coal in a clean way, we should pursue it. So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can. It’s just that it will bankrupt them.”

Weygandt said: “Regardless of the outcome of tomorrow’s election, elected officials at all levels need to stand up for a robust clean coal coal option for America,” Weygandt said. “They should stand up for affordable and reliable electricity, for a stable and reliable grid, and for the hundreds of thousands of American workers in this industry.” Full release here.

By P.J. Gladnick

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. This audio interview has been hidden from the public until now. Here is the transcript of Obama’s statement about bankrupting the coal industry:

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.

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

The only thing I’ve said with respect to coal, I haven’t been some coal booster. What I have said is that for us to take coal off the table as a (sic) ideological matter as opposed to saying if technology allows us to use coal in a clean way, we should pursue it. So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can. It’s just that it will bankrupt them.

Amazing that this statement by Obama about bankrupting the coal industry has been kept under wraps until this time. See the video of the interview here. See transcript here.

By Bob Ferguson, SPPI

Around the country, localities, states and multi-state regions are convening Climate Change Task Forces aimed at developing plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. As the name suggests, these groups have been created to develop Climate Action Plans that are intended to lessen the projected impacts of anthropogenic climate change around the world in general, but more particularly, in each state.

In every case, the Action Plans include a lengthy list of cookie-cut, prescribed actions spread across all segments of society, and that are aimed towards reducing future emissions of greenhouse gases to a level below some arbitrarily set target. In no case do any of the Plans lay out what quantified effects their recommended emissions cuts will have on local, regional or global climate. The reason why not? None of the Climate Action Plans will have any meaningful effect on the climate - or any change in future temperatures or sea levels. Here’s why.

In 2007, global emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) - the primary greenhouse gas emitted by human industrial activities - totaled 27,600 million metric tons (mmtCO2). The United States, as a whole, contributed 5,900 mmtCO2 to that total, or about 21.4%. Individual localities, states, etc., contributed much less (see columns 2 and 3 in the Table below for a state by state breakdown of total and percentage of global emissions).

Even more importantly, the percentage of global, manmade CO2 emissions from the U. S. (and each individual state) will decrease over the 21st century as the growing demand for power in developing countries such as China and India - and beginning in 2012, the Middle East - rapidly outpaces the growth of our CO2 emissions (EIA, 2007).

In no case do any of the plans lay out what quantified effects their recommended emissions cuts will have on local, regional or global climate.

During the past 5 years, global emissions of CO2 from human activity have increased at an average rate of 3.5%/yr, with China alone contributing nearly 2/3rds of the new emissions (Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, 2008). This means that the annual increase of global CO2 emissions is several times greater than the total emissions from most of the individual 50 states. Therefore, even a cessation of all CO2 emissions from any particular state will be completely subsumed by global emissions growth in only a matter of months! In fact, emissions increases produced by China alone rapidly overwhelm any emissions reductions made in the U.S. See rest of the story and the state-by-state table here.