In this article from SmartGridNews, we see what anyone could have predicted from the incumbent industries in response to U.S. President Obama’s speech on climate policy: instant attack, including the threat of litigation. Of course, the concept that the content of any speech will translate directly and quickly into action that negatively affects a powerful interest is really a fantasy.
From the article:
Jo Ann Emerson, CEO of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA), was having none of it: “Electric cooperatives oppose President Obama’s proposal to use the Clean Air Act to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from power plants. America’s rural communities depend on coal-fired generation for affordable electric power and would be disproportionately penalized by this scheme.” NRECA pledged to fight Obama’s strategy “at the agency level and in the courts if necessary.”
and…
John Pippy, CEO of Pennsylvania Coal Alliance, defended the coal industry’s record and efforts to reduce pollution and said in a news release that the president’s plan is “shortsighted and destructive to the nation’s fragile economic recovery.” He added, “There are tens of thousands of good-paying jobs at stake here.”
Yes, John, there are tens of thousands of good-paying jobs at stake, but there are also seven billion people with lungs, and an entire biosphere threatened by climate change, ocean acidification, loss of bio-diversity, etc.
