Norm Coleman backs coal industry's global warming bill

This will come as a surprise to only a few, but Norm Coleman has signed on as a co-sponsor to the coal industry's global warming bill written by John McCain and Joe Lieberman. Saint Angry McWaffleCain and Party of Joe are not known for their environmentalism and this bill is really disturbing. It encourages coal gasification as the main method for reducing global warming.

A new study has concluded that turning coal into liquid fuel yields 125% more carbon dioxide than producing diesel fuel and 66% more than gasoline. If the carbon dioxide is captured and permanently stored, liquid coal emits 20% more greenhouse gas than diesel but 11% less than conventional gasoline, according to the study to be released next week by Argonne National Laboratory, a research arm of the Energy Department.
(LATimes)

“This is the snake oil of energy alternatives,” said Peter Altman, a policy analyst at the National Environmental Trust, an environmental advocacy group. “The promises are just as lofty and the substance is just as absent as the first snake oil salesmen who plied their trade in the 1800s.”
(NYTimes)

Astute Norm Coleman watchers will recall that Norm wanted to build a huge coal gasification plant on the Iron Range last year. Norm will soon be battling for his political life and will need the money that the coal industry will donate. What better way to gain their good will than by co-sponsoring their bill.

Prodded by intense lobbying from the coal industry, lawmakers from coal states are proposing that taxpayers guarantee billions of dollars in construction loans for coal-to-liquid production plants, guarantee minimum prices for the new fuel, and guarantee big government purchases for the next 25 years.

With both House and Senate Democrats hoping to pass “energy independence” bills by mid-July, coal supporters argue that coal-based fuels are more American than gasoline and potentially greener than ethanol.
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Environmental groups are adamantly opposed, warning that coal-based diesel fuels would at best do little to slow global warming and at worst would produce almost twice as much of the greenhouse gases tied to global warming as petroleum.
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Coal companies are hardly alone in asking taxpayers to underwrite alternative fuels in the name of energy independence and reduced global warming. But the scale of proposed subsidies for coal could exceed those for any alternative fuel, including corn-based ethanol.

Among the proposed inducements winding through House and Senate committees: loan guarantees for six to 10 major coal-to-liquid plants, each likely to cost at least $3 billion; a tax credit of 51 cents for every gallon of coal-based fuel sold through 2020; automatic subsidies if oil prices drop below $40 a barrel; and permission for the Air Force to sign 25-year contracts for almost a billion gallons a year of coal-based jet fuel.

Coal companies have spent millions of dollars lobbying on the issue, and have marshaled allies in organized labor, the Air Force and fuel-burning industries like the airlines. Peabody Energy, the world’s biggest coal company, urged in a recent advertising campaign that people “imagine a world where our country runs on energy from Middle America instead of the Middle East.”
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The political momentum to subsidize coal fuels is in odd juxtaposition to simultaneous efforts by Democrats to draft global-warming bills that would place new restrictions on coal-fired electric power plants.

The move reflects a tension, which many lawmakers gloss over, between slowing global warming and reducing dependence on foreign oil.
(NYTimes)

Imagine a Middle America powered by wind power and solar power. It sure is windy in parts of the Midwest and we also get alot of sun. Why encourage snake oil solutions when we could invest in technologies that drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Norm Coleman doesn't see it this way. Which constituency is Norm representing? The majority of Minnesotans who want something done about global warming or the coal industry who will fill his campaign coffers if he does their bidding?

In addition The Party of Joe agreed to include Norm's language providing an easy way out of complying with the legislation:

In return, Lieberman agreed to work to include provisions supported by Coleman that would trigger a mandatory congressional review if other countries aren't taking comparable action, and if unemployment and poverty rates rise because of mandatory greenhouse gas reductions. Lieberman also agreed to support Coleman's proposal to reward utilities that increase the percentage of electricity they produce from clean energy sources.
(Strib)

So if there are two ways that any future Republican Congress could weasel out from under St. Angry McWaffleCain and Party of Joe's bill ... if other countries aren't doing enough (whatever subjective standard it happens to be) or people no longer have jobs because those durned environmentalist who hate it when people make any money have ruined it for everybody.

While I am not opposed to rewarding power companies that make current coal plants cleaner, build solar or wind power facilities, I don't want to reward utilities for building coal gasification plants that at best won't make a difference when it comes to global warmer or most likely will significantly contribute to it.