Your president and his administration would, gleefully. He continues to wage war on the poorest among us over electricity generation. From a press release of the U.S. House Natural Resources Committee on the Obama administration’s rewrite of coal production regulation, which officials admit could have “catastrophic” and “atomic” impact on coal mining and jobs :
There are digital audio recordings totaling approximately 30 hours of meetings between Interior Department personnel and hired contractors regarding the rewrite of the rule. The Department is ignoring a subpoena seeking copies of the audio recordings and has only provided heavily redacted versions of a few, select transcripts. However, copies of the recordings and unofficial transcripts provided to the Committee raise numerous questions about the Administrations motives for the rewriting the rule.
For example, the audio clips feature:
- An OSM official discussing how a benefit of the Obama Administration’s new proposed rule is no coal mining.
- The proposed rule being characterized as “atomic” for small businesses, with Director Pizarchik’s intent being to make the company decide whether they are “willing to risk their ability to ever mine coal again, against the possibility that they won’t be able to restore the stream.”
- An OSM official worrying about how to “sell” the proposed rule to the public because it will only save 15 miles of stream, while costing millions in taxpayer dollars and thousands of American jobs. It appears the proposed rule would only save 15 miles of stream because coal production would be moved to other regions outside of the Appalachia – meaning the rule would have minimal national environmental benefit but would succeed in causing extreme economic dislocation and devastation in communities all across Appalachia.
