Before folks go running off to condemn Senator Clinton, reflect a moment on the following:

The Clean Air Act created a sulfur doixide cap-and-trade program to implement an acid rain reducion program back in the mid-90s.

Prior to Congress passing that law, Congressman Henry Waxman (as dedicated an environmental legislator as ever there was) introduced a bill to pay for installation of a sulfur dioxide removal scrubber for the 50 largest sulfur dioxide emitting power plants.

Environmental Defense argued against it and said 'let the market decide how utility companies will reduce sulfur dioxide by the least expensive means'.

Well, the companies have done just that.  

They quit buying and mining the high sulfur coal of Illinois, Indiana and Kentucky and shifted to  the low sulfur coal seams in the high mountains of Appalachia.  The US DOE Energy Information Administration Form 423 has the verifiable coal-purchase data to prove that fact.  Go see for yourself.

When I once asked an Environmental Defense lobbyist how he defends SO2 cap-and-trade in light of mountaintop removal, he said "That was an unintended consequence".

So, get the story straight and call back the mob.

John McCormick

This is a nice, succinct summary:

<<
captainkona at the WhitesCreek Journal:

Her answer shows two things very clearly:

She has no clue what she's talking about.

She will sell the environment to the highest bidders.

LOL! This person wants to be the Dem nominee? She sounded like Bush with the incoherent banter.

>>

Just to be clear, what she said revealed either ignorance or insensitivity about two different environmental issues, and one social-justice issue:

speaking hopefully about coal, a major enemy of the human race, is not well done;

MTR/Valley-Fill is destructive of many regional ecosystems;

many people in the Appalachian coal-mining region could use some helpful suggestions, with the promise of a strong helping hand.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

Removing anything at all from a mine while doing the least possible damage to the Earth's surface is not a labor-saving proposition.

But it is a job-creating proposition, assuming that we still do require materials that come from mines.  (If you can read this, then you are now using various rare metals that come from mines.)  Many hands make careful work and provide the possibility of clean-up.  Few hands make slap-dash work and leave behind lasting damage.  Using big machines and explosives, we can dramatically speed up the work that a few hands can do.  But haste makes waste.

It's the "labor-saving" propositions (which are more accurately money-saving schemes for investors, not techniques that make workers' tasks any easier), like mountaintop removal, that kill both jobs AND nature.

Similar arguments can be made in regard to the mechanization of timber cutting and the mechanization of fishing on the open seas.

We have a right to expect that our elected representatives understand this.