EDITORIAL: War on coal claims more victims

Back in 2008, when he was still an underdog candidate for the Democratic nomination, Barack Obama laid out his strategy for the future of coal.

“If somebody wants to build a coal-fired power plant, they can. It’s just that it will bankrupt them,” Obama told the San Francisco Chronicle editorial board. He added, “Under my plan… electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.”

Now, the context of that comment was “cap and trade,” the leftist scheme to outwit industrialists by forcing them to pay what amounts to a tax on their own energy use. Fortunately, cap-and-trade has gone the way of most great socialist ideas — to the ash heap of history — but that hasn’t stopped President Obama.

He’s been waging a merciless war on coal for years, and last week he escalated his offensive by suspending new coal leasing on federal lands for up to three years. Among many regions affected will be the Powder River Basin in Wyoming and Montana.

Montana Gov. Steve Bullock, a Democrat like Obama, rightly called the president to task: “President Obama is wrong, and once again Montana’s working families are bearing the brunt of his unilateral action.”

Good for the governor. The coal industry has enough problems without government inventing more of them. The industry has already been hit with new anti-pollution regulations, a faltering international market and increased competition from natural gas. Montana has already seen one coal-fired power plant close, and nationally they are having their economic viability squeezed out of them by an anti-coal administration.

Republican state Rep. Tim Stubson of Wyoming aptly described the future for coal-rich Wyoming and Montana towns if Obama’s war isn’t halted soon:

“If we aren’t able to change those policies around, places like Gillette are going to look very much like the economies of Appalachia are looking right now.”