Democrats Object to President Obama’s Climate Change Policies

Via Heartland.org:

A coalition of hundreds of Democratic party officials and state and local office holders sent a letter to President Obama outlining their objections to his climate change policies.  In particular, in the letter the officials from 32 states take aim at the centerpiece of President Obama’s climate change agenda, the Clean Power Plan.

The coalition, referring to itself CoalBlue, says it has “serious and overriding concerns,” with the Environmental Protection Agency’s new emission rules for power plants.

Focusing on Clean ‘Not Enough’

The letter signed by 626 state and local officials from nearly three dozen states, including 177 state legislators, 278 local elected officials and 148 Democratic Party officials, argues an energy policy, “focused on clean is not enough,” rather energy production must be affordable and reliable. Such a focus has driven environmental progress for decades and this, instead of the EPA’s regulations, is what continues to be needed to spark a new energy technology revolution necessary to improve fossil fuel energy use in the developing world and the U.S.

The letter notes the EPA emission rules effectively ban clean coal technologies by making them cost prohibitive.

The letter states, “The American people will object, and other nations of the world will not follow, if the path we chart is one of more expensive, less reliable energy.”

“True leadership requires the pursuit of policies that will make all forms of clean energy less expensive, be they renewable or fossil-based, and as reliable as current baseload coal-fired generation,” reads the letter.

Need ‘Affordable, Reliable’ Energy

The Washington Examiner quotes former U.S. Rep. Zack Space (D-OH), chairman of CoalBlue, saying “If we are going to provide real leadership in the world community on climate, we cannot begin by implementing policies that have no hope of succeeding outside of the United States, or possibly even within the United States.”

“The EPA, while well intentioned, has lost sight of the importance of preserving affordable and reliable energy in its pursuit of clean energy,” Space told the Examiner. “As such, it has put forth policies that other nations, particularly in the developing world, are unlikely to follow, and that risk the loss of support at home.”

Delivered November 24, 2015, CoalBlue’s letter was timed to inform President Obama’s message delivered at the United Nations conference in Paris, which began Nov. 30.

See the article here.