Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThere is a dangerous bubble in the fossil-fuel economy
Last year, shortly after the election, the coal baron Robert Murray received a phone call from President-elect Donald Trump. He said, Tell your coal miners I got their backs, Murray later reported to Fox News. Then he said, I love you, man. Murray, who is the chairman and C.E.O. of Murray Energy, the largest private coal company in the country, was one of the first fossil-fuel executives to support Trumps candidacy. Prior to the Republican National Convention, he hosted a fund-raiser for Trump in Charleston, West Virginia, attracting nearly five hundred thousand dollars in donations and contributing hundreds of thousands more from his own pocket. It was eight years of pure hell under the Democrat Party and Obama, Murray recently told Frontline. He added, laughing into the camera, But we won! Its a wonderful victory!
Now Murray and his ilk have scored another victory. Last Tuesday, Scott Pruitt, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, filed a proposal with the Federal Register to formally repeal the Obama Administrations Clean Power Plan. Finalized in 2015, the C.P.P. was designed to hasten state utilities adoption of renewable energy, improve air quality and public health across the nation, and, most notable, insure that the United States met its commitments under the Paris climate accorda minimum twenty-six-per-cent reduction in greenhouse-gas emissions by 2025, based on 2005 levels. In a statement on the proposed repeal, Pruitt criticized the plans devastating effects on the American people. The CPP ignored states concerns and eroded longstanding and important partnerships, he said. The day before, in a speech to a group of miners in Hazard, Kentucky, Pruitt had echoed Murrays triumphalist tone, declaring, The war on coal is over.
There is little doubt that one of the important partnerships Pruitt had in mind was with Murray Energy. His current second-in-command at the E.P.A., Andrew Wheeler, was a lobbyist for the company until mid-August, and when Pruitt was attorney general of Oklahoma, Murray was a top donor to his super pac. The C.E.O. was also a co-plaintiff in eight of the fourteen lawsuits that Pruitt brought against the E.P.A. before Trump put him in charge of the agency. One involved the C.P.P. According to Murray and Pruitts interpretation, the plan was a classic case of governmental overreach; the E.P.A., they claimed, did not have the regulatory authority to impose emissions targets on individual states. Thanks largely to their efforts, the C.P.P. never actually went into effect. It remains tied up in federal court.
Yet Pruitts proposed repeal is itself a kind of overreach. The E.P.A. can no more stop the decline of coal than Trump can prove that climate change is a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese. As Jim Krane, an energy researcher at Rice Universitys Baker Institute for Public Policy, told me, The federal government has only tertiary influence over the U.S. energy sector, which responds foremost to market signals and secondarily to state-level regulation. In reversing many of Obamas keystone climate and environmental policies, Pruitt and Trump are conveniently ignoring these market signals in order to help out the fossil-fuel millionaires and billionaires who put them in office. Their actions could have disastrous consequences, not only for the climate but also for the global economy.
more
https://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/theres-a-dangerous-bubble-in-the-fossil-fuel-economy-and-the-trump-administration-is-making-it-worse
InfoView thread info, including edit history
TrashPut this thread in your Trash Can (My DU » Trash Can)
BookmarkAdd this thread to your Bookmarks (My DU » Bookmarks)
0 replies, 1018 views
ShareGet links to this post and/or share on social media
AlertAlert this post for a rule violation
PowersThere are no powers you can use on this post
EditCannot edit other people's posts
ReplyReply to this post
EditCannot edit other people's posts
Rec (11)
ReplyReply to this post