Jim Inhofe: “like all of my colleagues I have been watching the presidential campaign with great interest, and I have noticed that…”

“like all of my colleagues I have been watching the presidential campaign with great interest, and I have noticed that the Democratic nominee has been making comments, particularly in the Midwest, which can not be reconciled with his record here in the Senate. The Democratic nominee says coal should play an important role in America's energy future. He wants to ``forge new ways to draw cleaner power from coal.'' But his record tells a different story--his votes and policies are aggressively anti-coal. On every issue of importance to coal and coal miners, he has sided with environmental extremists, who, like the Democratic nominee, view coal as a ``dirty energy source'' that must be eradicated. Last year, the Democratic nominee voted for the Climate Stewardship Act, S. 139, a bill very similar to the Kyoto Protocol, which would destroy the coal industry. Unions for Jobs and the Environment, a group that includes the United Mine Workers, called S. 139 ``a bad idea,'' and believe that passage of S. 139 ``would be tantamount to adoption of the Kyoto Protocol.'' According to the Energy Information Administration, the bill causes steep declines in coal use and production and eliminates thousands of coal jobs. S. 139 would: cut coal-fired electricity by 80 percent; cut bituminous coal production by 69 percent; destroy 56,000 coal industry jobs; and cause existing coal plants in West Virginia, Ohio, Michigan, and Pennsylvania to shut down.”