Obama wants to bankrupt coal industry?

[Holden_C04]

Originally Posted by Picus

I'm just wondering if anyone can explain to what about that video is so damning?

They're American. What can you say?

[rjstaaf]

From the United Mine Workers of America...

McCain campaign’s last minute distortion of Obama’s coal record an act of desperation | United Mine Workers of America

McCain campaign’s last minute distortion of Obama’s coal record an act of desperation
date:
November 3, 2008
For immediate release?:


United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) International President Cecil E. Roberts issued the following statement today:

“Sen. John McCain and his running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin, have once again demonstrated that they are willing to say anything and do anything to win this election. Their latest twisting of the truth is about coal and some comments Sen. Obama made last January about the future use of coal in America.

“Here is what the McCain campaign left out of Sen. Obama’s actual words: ‘But this notion of no coal, I think, is an illusion. Because the fact of the matter is, is that right now we are getting a lot of our energy from coal. And China is building a coal-powered plant once a week. So what we have to do then is figure out how can we use coal without emitting greenhouse gases and carbon. And how can we sequester that carbon and capture it.’

“Sen. Obama has been consistent with that message not just in the coalfields, but everywhere else he goes as well. Despite what the McCain campaign and some far right-wing blogs would have Americans believe, Sen. Obama has been and remains a tremendous supporter of coal and the future of coal.

“I noted that Sen. McCain even went so far yesterday as to say he has always been a supporter of coal. I wonder, then, how he can justify his statement at a Senate hearing in 2000 that, ‘In a perfect world we would like to transition away from coal entirely,’ and his leading role in sponsoring legislation in 2003 that would have wiped out 78 percent of all coal production in America?

“Fortunately, UMWA members, their families and their friends and neighbors in the coalfields know all too well what is going on here. They’re not going to fall for it, and we urge others throughout America who care about coal to review what the candidates’ records on coal actually are. We are confident that once they do, and once they see the many other benefits to working families of voting for Sen. Obama, they will make the right choice for themselves and their families

The Real McCain Record on Coal | United Mine Workers of America

Think John McCain's supports coal? Think again:
"I would not disagree that with you that in a perfect world we would like to transition away from coal entirely."

John McCain, at a hearing of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, Sept. 21, 2000.

That was just the beginning.

In January, 2003 McCain wrote and introduced cliimate change legislation into Congress, Senate Bill 139, "The Climate Stewardship Act of 2003." An analysis done by the U.S. Energy Information Administration in May, 2004 said:
"Under S. 139 (McCain's bill), the reductions in U.S. coal production...are estimated to be 14 percent in 2010 and 78 percent in 2025."



That bill didn't pass the Congress, thankfully. But McCain wasn't finished working over the coal industry.

In 2007, McCain introduced yet another climate change bill, Senate Bill 280. This time he took aim at coal production east of the Mississippi River, especially in Appalachia.
An analysis of McCain's 2007 legislation by the Environmental Protection Agency showed that the bill called for a cut in Appalachian coal production for electricity generation by 30 percent by 2025.



So now that he's running for President and needs votes wherever he can get them, we're supposed to believe John McCain really supports coal miners?

Come on.