The War on Coal Obama Isn't Fighting

[xchrom]

http://influenceexplorer.com/


A train hauling coal from the Powder River Basin heads north out of Seattle. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)

As the pending decision on the Keystone XL pipeline dominates the climate focus in the United States, an even bigger carbon bomb is ticking quietly in a remote region of the American West.

Big Coal and Republican lawmakers are pushing to expand mining operations on federal lands in the Powder River Basin, which straddles eastern Montana and Wyoming and holds the bulk of the country’s coal stocks.

If they’re successful, railways in the Pacific Northwest will soon transport an annual cargo bound for Asian markets that amounts to more than 200 million metric tons of carbon dioxide. For comparison, projections for Keystone XL see emissions increasing by about 181 million metric tons per year.

If, as President Obama said in his climate speech, it isn’t in the national interest to significantly increase carbon pollution, keeping PRB coal in the ground should be a priority. But his administration has continued to give Big Coal access to the PRB, and has not addressed the proposal to radically expand mining from a climate perspective.



Read more: The War on Coal Obama Isn't Fighting | The Nation http://www.thenation.com/blog/175210/war-coal-obama-isnt-fighting#ixzz2ZDMFyNPA
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[Tansy_Gold]

1. Do you know of any wars he IS fighting?

I mean other than the wasteful stupid ones against poor people in other countries that might have similar mineral riches, or the big war against working and poor people?

Fracking, strip mining, off-shore oil leases, patting poor BP on the head for all the oil they lost in the Gulf -- I don't think he considers "energy" companies much of an enemy.