Trump's Latest Plan For Saving Coal Comes From the Cold War
Source: Bloomberg News
By Jennifer A Dlouhy and Jennifer Jacobs
April 19, 2018, 4:00 AM EDT Updated on April 19, 2018, 9:25 AM EDT
-- President has extraordinary authority under 68-year-old law
-- Tactic used to keep electricity flowing amid California crisis
Months into the Korean War, President Harry Truman capped wages and imposed price controls on the steel industry, seizing authority under a newly passed law to take action in the name of national defense.
Now, more than a half century later, Trump administration officials are considering using the same statute to keep struggling coal and nuclear power plants online, according to four people familiar with the discussions who asked for anonymity to discuss private deliberations.
Under the approach, the administration would invoke sweeping authority in the 68-year-old Defense Production Act, which allows the president to effectively nationalize private industry to ensure the U.S. has resources that could be needed amid a war or after a disaster.
"The security of our homeland is inextricably tied to the security of our energy supply," Senator Joe Manchin, a Democrat from West Virginia, said in a Wednesday letter urging President Donald Trump to employ the statute. "The ability to produce reliable electricity is critical to ensuring our nations security against the various threats facing us today -- whether those threats be extreme weather events or adversarial foreign actors."
Read more: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-19/trump-may-invoke-cold-war-era-defense-act-to-boost-coal-plants
get the red out
(13,466 posts)Just a touch anti-private industry for a Republican President. I'm sure that the lap-dog Rs in congress would just bite their lips bloody and smile though.
notdarkyet
(2,226 posts)JustABozoOnThisBus
(23,350 posts)THEN we start ripping into those who are not "true blue" Dems.
Botany
(70,516 posts)And those extreme weather events are in many cases from global
climate change which is caused by the burning of fossil fuels such
as coal.
dhill926
(16,346 posts)jesus christ....
KPN
(15,646 posts)LastLiberal in PalmSprings
(12,586 posts)The Repub mantra: "Privatize profits, socialize losses."
sinkingfeeling
(51,460 posts)safeinOhio
(32,688 posts)they would nationalize all energy companies, including the profits.
I suggest it would work very well with Health Care too.
demigoddess
(6,641 posts)republican party is just so over the top!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
How in the world in the 21st century did the idiots of this country elect a man whose brain is living in the 18th and 19th century. No wonder the idiot did not like escalators.
KY_EnviroGuy
(14,492 posts)See: https://www.democraticunderground.com/10142041442 (thanks, DonViejo)
Or, direct to article: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-19/u-k-goes-a-record-55-hours-without-coal-as-clean-power-expands
And we used to be the leader in most all things. MAGA my ass.
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