November 7, 2022 |
Just days before the mid-term election, Joe Biden repeated the same mistake Hillary Clinton made in 2016. Biden said Friday he’s going to put coal and coal-fired power plants out of business.
The comment echoed the same hostility shown toward the American working class and consumers that Clinton exhibited in March of 2016.
Like Biden, Clinton’s comments were coupled with a promise of replacing coal with wind and solar. No amount of spinning after Clinton’s comments aired on a CNN town hall meeting was enough to repair the damage with coal producing states. Like Clinton, the Biden administration was in damage control all weekend after the president’s comments on Friday.
Abandoning coal fired power plants for wind and solar could mean energy bills rocket, hitting consumers already reeling from increase in gas prices since Biden took office. Swing states will be especially hit.
Pennsylvania has 24 coal-fired power plants. Each employees at least 200 hundred people making middle-income or better salaries. North Carolina and Ohio have 15 each. Michigan has 13. Wisconsin has 12, as does our neighbor to the south. Colorado has a dozen coal-fired power plants. Wyoming has 19 coal fired units in operation.
West Virginia operates 18. The U.S. Senator from West Virginia, Joe Manchin, called Biden’s comment “outrageous and divorced from reality.” In a statement, the Democrat from one of the nation’s top coal producing states said, “Comments like these are the reason the American people are losing trust in President Biden and instead believe he does not understand the need to have an all in energy policy that would keep our nation totally energy independent and secure.”
In 2018, West Virginia exported $4.3 billion in coal-produced energy to 35 countries, according to the state’s Department of Commerce. Coal-fired electric power plants also account for 88 percent of the mountaineer state’s electricity net generation.
In Wyoming, coal-fired power plants produced about 73 percent of Wyoming’s electricity net generation in 2021, down from its peak of 97 percent in 2003.
As part of its damage control efforts, the White House issued a non-apology apology over the weekend. In a 322-word statement, Biden Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said, “The President’s remarks have been twisted to suggest a meaning that was not intended; he regrets it if anyone hearing these remarks took offense.”
