Environmental Protection Agency Lisa Jackson implemented a climate change regulation demonstrating that EPA effectively required coal communities to "go away," according to the EPA's New England regional administrator, Curt Spalding.
Spalding explained that the EPA doesn't want to say that in public, even though that's the effect of their policies.
"Lisa Jackson has put forth a very powerful message to the country," Spalding said told Yale University during a March 30-31 forum. "Just two days ago, the decision on greenhouse gas performance standards, and saying basically, 'gas plants are the performance standard, which means that if you want to build a coal plant you've got a big problem.' That was a huge decision."
Spalding explained just how that "huge decision" hurts the workers who depend on the coal industry: "You can't imagine how tough that was, because -- you got to remember -- if you go to West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and all those places, you have coal communities who depend on coal. And to say, 'we just think those communities should just go away' -- we can't do that. But she had to do what the law and policy suggested and it's painful. It is painful every step of the way."
In an infographic released in May, the White House failed to list coal among the energy sources President Obama wanted to develop as part of his so-called "all-of-the-above" energy strategy. The White House added "clean coal" to the infographic after it received unpleasant media and congressional attention.
No wonder the Democratic governor of West Virginia and one of the Democratic senators from that state refuse to say they'll vote for President Obama.
H/T Erika Johnsen
