When Donald Trump pulled the U.S. out of
the Paris climate agreement last June, France, Germany, and Italy were quick to
subject Washington to a never-ending barrage of criticism. But in
what can be described only as the height of hypocrisy, these same countries
have been more than happy to keep their power plants running using
American coal. As so often when coal is involved, the gap
between their rhetoric and action exposes the painful dishonesty infecting the
debate.
In 2017, total American coal exports increased by 58 percent
compared to 2016, amounting to 95 million tons – of which 40 million went to
Europe, despite the continent's leaders' vow of curtailing
coal. That the Obama administration was out to severely curtail
fossil fuel use is well known. The former president's scorn for coal
was abundantly obvious, and the Paris agreement was its
embodiment. Despite proclaiming the
U.S. the "Saudi Arabia of coal," in May 2008, Obama soon
back-flipped once in office and turned against the resource.
Within a year, Obama unleashed the war on coal when he proposed
a nationwide
cap-and-trade system targeting local plants, stifling coal companies
with excessive regulation, and cutting
billions in funding for clean coal projects across the
country. Worse, what remained of the federal grants for such
projects was allowed to be willfully
misspent. In an example of the utter incompetence of the Obama
White House, power firm Summit Power Group squandered parts of a $450-million
stimulus grant on absurd excesses rather than using the money to advance a long
sought after clean coal project in Texas.
Glaring lack of oversight and a willfully destructive attitude
toward coal aside, the decision to kill coal was yet another a massive
miscalculation of the left. Failing to look ahead, Obama did his
best to unravel American coal during what should have been a time of progress
for clean coal technology development.
Luckily, the current White House is taking a different approach in
an attempt to make up for lost time. Instead of throwing millions
and millions of taxpayer dollars at renewables, the 2019
budget proposal flat-out slashes funding for renewable energy – an
industry that remains all too immature to cover a significant amount of U.S.
energy needs despite previous government handouts.
The financial groundwork for effective clean coal technology
research is buoyed through a host of measures to boost investments into carbon
capture technology. A plan for tax
credit extensions will incentivize carbon capture by offering a tax
extension for every ton of carbon dioxide that is captured and then either
sequestered or used in another field of production, such as oil
recovery. At the same time, the Department of Energy's Fossil Energy
Research and Development will receive a cash
injection of $502 million.
Naturally, Democrats are up in arms about these policy
moves. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), vice chairman of the Senate
Appropriations Committee, released a
press statement deriding the budget proposal's priorities as "not
the priorities of the American people." Like so many of his
fellow perennial do-gooders, he is gravely mistaken. For starters,
the export increases to Europe (and Asia) haveboosted
mining jobs across the U.S., signaling an unexpected renaissance for
an industry that was fighting for its life not too long ago. The
surge is such that coal-producers are reopening previously shut down
mines. In Indiana, for example, coal firm Alliance Resource Partners
is reopening a mine it had to decommission in 2015, the same year the Paris agreement
was forced through.
The constructive approach to coal is not only bolstering the
domestic economy; it is also central to advancing American interests
abroad. The U.S. has clawed itself back into a position to rapidly
advance its know-how in the clean coal sector at a time when major world
economies are investing heavily in coal power. For example, India
will continue to rely first and foremost on clean coal, using high-efficiency,
low-emission (HELE) coal plants, for at least another
30 years to cover its growing energy needs. And in China,
the International Energy Agency has predicted that coal
will account for more than 55% of energy demand by 2022.
In pushing for a global "Clean
Coal Alliance" at the U.N. climate conference in Germany late
last year, the U.S. forcefully asserted its claim to leadership in boosting
clean coal use around the globe. An alliance including Australia,
Indonesia, China, India, Ukraine, Poland, and Japan would also place a lot of
pressure on international institutions like the World Bank to reconsider their
needlessly rigid stance on renewables. The World Bank in the past
demonstrated a clear
bias in favor of renewables projects by ending financial support for
coal-fired plants. Yet recent budget plans add a lot of weight
and credibility to the creation of the alliance, providing coal-reliant
countries with the means to circumvent World Bank restrictions.
Despite years of missed opportunity and wasted money, the Trump
administration is kicking production into overdrive. Never mind the
naysayers: the Europeans themselves have clearly realized they cannot sustain
their economies through other fuel sources alone. And while the
ideologues at home cry foul play, it is important to remember that this country
was built on coal, innovation, and invention. America is back on
track to lead the way.