I'll Drink to That!

The Liberal Media has kept images like this from a little coal ash spill in Tennessee out of sight in order to make people shocked when they get finally get published.

What the liberals won't tell you is that this supposed "disaster" is an every day reality--it's nothing shocking or dangerous.

Now a bunch of hand-wringers are worried about the "health" effects of this spill on drinking water, even though nobody can show how water in the wild actually gets into our piped drinking water supply. Those are two totally separate systems.

Kingston Mayor Troy Beets raised his glass of coal-infused tap water in a press conference to demonstrate its healthy properties. He served it to his grandkids. I join him in a toast: salut!

Hat Tip to Exxon

For those who say that burning carbon is a thing of the past, check out what my friends at Exxon are have done once again. For the fifth year in a row, they are the most profitable corporation in the world. They may be second to Wal-Mart on Fortune's list, but that's not bad company to keep, either.

With Exxon and Wal-Mart at the top of the heap, we've got a future that looks both turbo-charged and classy.

Oil, coal, and inexpensive things made from plastic: we're offering the world the stuff it most deeply needs.   Cheers!

Putting Democracy in its Rightful Place

Who said that government has a right to stick its nose in the business of this planet?

Republicans and democrats alike are now both fighting to have government insert itself in the fate of the planet's climate. But who wants government to mandate limits on CO2 or DDT or lead or mercury in the atmosphere? The only people who have a right to determine what goes into earth's atmosphere are God and the business community.

We're fighting hard to make that case to every voter in the country. Why not join us in this struggle and round up your monthly power bill: we'll use the extra funds to convince your friends and neighbors that business--not government--knows best how to run a healthy planet.

Let government find another planet to govern. The business community has got this one.

The Beginning of the End of Coal?

A city in Colorado has completely abandoned coal-powered electricity and now generates all of their electrical power through wind turbines.

This is seditious: imagine if our entire country made this switch. Instead of workers digging and stripping out coal mines across the country, they'd be stuck constructing and installing wind turbines in the open air. And we frankly don't know what would happen to our air quality if we stopped burning billions of tons of coal every year; many people think that air quality would improve, but, with coal emissions such a major part of our air now, no one really knows what would happen to our air if we eliminated the products of coal combustion from our air.

It is frightening to imagine our nation's cities and countryside without coal emissions blanketing our land and water and air. But that is exactly where this Colorado city would lead us. Will you join us in stopping them? Tell Congress to increase subsidies to the coal industry, loosen "pollution" and labor laws, and, by all means, oppose subsidies for "green" energy. If wind and solar power get the same level of subsidy that we in the coal industry get, the days of coal-burning will be numbered. "Clean" air--free of coal emissions--is nothing to sneeze at. It is a serious danger we must face.

Smoking out the Truth

Those of us in the coal-to-energy industry are finally getting some media attention for our efforts to infuse some helpful, unbiased information into the election process.

The many millions of dollars' worth of advertising we're offering to the public free of charge will help set the record straight: coal smoke is not just clean but actually healthy; the coal industry--not the government--is best equipped to decide what constitutes healthy or unhealthy emissions; relying on "free" energy sources like solar or wind only makes Americans lazy and feeds a sense of energy-entitlement.

Scientists and so-called public health "experts" get plenty of free publicity through institutions like clinics, universities, the Centers for Disease Control, and hospitals. Those of us in the energy industry rarely complain that we are burdened with the high costs of advertising in order to offer our substantial health and environmental expertise to the public. It's a burden, however, that we're willing to shoulder.

We now humbly offer that burden--on your television, in your newspaper, on the radio--to the election process, and to you.

"Green" Energy: the Hidden Threat

So-called "green energy" should really be called "red energy." Red, as in communist, or, more precisely, anti-capitalist.

The hidden agenda of many in the environmental movement isn't simply cleaning up the world. They are interested in fundamentally undermining the basic foundations of capitalism in the energy business.

Take my coal-burning power plant as an example. It functions as a traditional good corporate citizen: we pay to mine the coal (with millions spent on extravagant and over-regulated worker protections), we pay to process the coal, we pay to transport the coal to the plant, we pay to unload and burn the coal in the plant, and we charge a small fee to energy consumers. All along the way, we inject wealth into the system. You might say that when you see coal burning, you can see money burning, which is fuel for the engine of the economy.

So-called green energy is just the opposite. There are no mines, no transportation costs, no processing costs, no refineries to build. The "fuel" simply appears as wind or sun or ocean waves, with no charge, no billing address, no opportunity for wealth creation. This represents a fundamental breach of economic protocol: a flooded supply chain without opportunity for branding or market share. There seems to be no way to offer a value-added wind or sunshine product to consumers--they simply receive it without industrial or commercial enhancement. That is a dangerous anti-growth precedent to set.

Besides the economic disruptions that "green" energy is bringing, consider the social costs: so-called green energy would teach people to be lazy, expecting energy to come simply from the wind or the sun. When these technologies became standard parts of homes and businesses, consumers will take energy for granted--as something that simply comes for free, as a function of their physical plant. With this country already struggling with an obesity epidemic, a lazy sense of unlimited-energy-entitlement is the last thing we need.

Stan My Man

Our smokestacks can still breathe freely just like you or I can. But the eco-warriors won't quit: they're still trying to stop our strip mines, tax benefits, and smoke stacks.

That's why it's very good news that today President Bush, himself a former energy executive, nominated Stanley Suboleski to be assistant secretary of fossil energy, a top post in the Department of Energy.

Normally, I am opposed to anyone trying to regulate fossil fuels. We in the industry are 100% trustworthy when it comes to looking after the air, the groundwater, and our mines. However, in Mr. Suboleski, we get a regulator who knows that regulation can be a burden--one that should be vigorously challenged.

Stan, in his academic and lobbying roles, has been a champion of industrial freedom and a foe to environmental regulation. But he doesn't just talk the talk. From 2001-2003, as chief operating officer of the mining company Massey Energy, Stan lead a company that courageously took on $2.4 billion in fines for more than 4,000 Clean Water Act violations at its coal operations in West Virginia and Kentucky. Stan and Massey Energy didn't just complain about regulations--they attacked them head-on. Standing up to regulatory agencies isn't for the faint-of-heart. Stan, as a new leader of those agencies, will have the courage to put these regulatory agents back in their rightful place: in their offices shuffling papers and not poking around our mines, obsessing over drinking water quality, or worrying about what's in our air.

With Al Gore and the IPCC in the news so much recently, many of us in the industry were getting worried about all the attention to fossil fuels. Now, with Stan's nomination, all our nation's hardworking smokestacks can breathe a little easier and more freely.