Industry Group Hits Back at Anti-Coal Rhetoric From Bloomberg, Sierra Club

In a Wednesday column, the president of a major coal industry group defended coal energy against recent attacks from the environmentalist left. The current drive to drastically redcuce coal power in the United States, he claimed, would deal a body blow to the American economy. “There are challenges inherent with using every energy resource,” wrote Steve Miller, president and CEO of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity. “But if the United States backs away from any of our domestic resources because it poses challenges, we will soon find ourselves with fewer, more expensive supplies of energy.” Miller specifically addressed the recent donation by New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg to the environmentalist group Sierra Club. The donation specifically funded the group’s anti-coal campaign, which Miller claimed would, if successful, drastically reduce the country’s “jobs, economic growth, energy security and global competitiveness.” Sierra Club claims it has prevented 150 coal power plants from opening, and seeks to shut down a third of the country’s older power plants in the next decade. Bloomberg’s donation, the Sierra Club said, will aid in that campaign...more