U.S. Coal Giant Greets Obama Climate Rules With Bankruptcy

[Horn]

After having blessed the chinese environmental beast with its main course in TPP agreements.

Its time to put the final nail in any hope of recovery for U.S. energy sectors.


The second-biggest U.S. coal producer filed for bankruptcy hours before the EPA was due to publish new rules

The Environmental Protection Agency today will release President Obama's new rules for power producers, rules that are expected to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the sector more than 30 percent by 2030.
As the White House puts its cards on the table, the second-largest U.S. coal producer is folding its current hand and reshuffling.
Alpha Natural Resources declared bankruptcy this morning to get out from under $3.3 billion in debt accumulated over the past several years. The specific timing of its filing—hours before the EPA publishes its rules—may be coincidental. That it has happened at all is not.

Several factors converged to bring about coal's collapse, of which Obama is only the easiest for coal industry leaders to blame. There's the U.S. natural gas boom, which gave power producers a cheaper, less-polluting alternative. Coal companies took on debt around 2011, when Chinese demand pushed prices up globally, according to Bloomberg (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-08-03/coal-miner-alpha-natural-resources-files-for-bankruptcy). That binge has wound down since then, taking coal prices with it, and coal companies like Alpha Natural Resources are left holding the bill.


http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-08-03/u-s-coal-giant-greets-obama-climate-rules-with-bankruptcy

[ximmy]

Ohio coal industry says Obama promised to bankrupt coal-fired power plant builders By Stephen Koff (http://www.politifact.com/ohio/staff/stephen-koff/) on Monday, March 14th, 2011 at 4:30 p.m.

It’s 2008 all over again, based on a claim that recently surfaced from Ohio’s coal industry. That was the year Barack Obama won the presidency. Ten months earlier, the candidate -- a Democratic senator from Illinois who was campaigning for the presidential nomination -- did a wide-ranging, videotaped interview (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/nov05election/detail?entry_id=32228) with the San Francisco Chronicle’s editorial board that included his prescription for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Before the campaign would end, his political opponents, including Sarah Palin, discovered the interview on the newspaper’s website and tried to use it against Obama in coal-rich states like Ohio. Maybe you’ve forgotten about it. The coal industry, in a long battle against proposals to cut greenhouse gas emissions by reducing coal use, has not.

[Horn]

We can also hot link this to the GSUS WTF-By-2025-the-population-of-the-US-will-go-from-316-million-to-69-million thread,

http://gold-silver.us/forum/showthread.php?79766-WTF-By-2025-the-population-of-the-US-will-go-from-316-million-to-69-million

seeing as how we all (with our operating bodies) are net CO2 producers.

[Horn]

Ironically on the day when another coal company collapses into bankruptcy, (http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-08-03/another-one-bites-coal-dust-alpha-natural-files-bankruptcy) President Obama begins the pitch for his "Clean Power Plan" which Murray Energy CEO Robert Murray described as "biazrre", blames for the collapse in the coal industry, and has now filed five federal lawsuits against the president who Murray believes is "the nation's greatest destroyer."

As we previously noted, (http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-07-25/furious-coal-ceo-lets-it-all-out-obama-nations-great-destroyer)The President, you see, is on a "bizarre personal and political" quest to destroy not only the coal industry, but the entire country and according to Murray, "radical environmentalists, liberal elitists, [and] Hollywood characters" aren’t doing anything to help the situation.
And make no mistake, this isn’t about money for Murray, this is all about the people. "Mr. Obama's actions are a human issue to me, as I know the names of many of the Americans whose jobs and family livelihoods are being destroyed," Murray said, adding that "these Americans are my employees."
Or at least they were his employees. Murray laid off (http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-05-22/meanwhile-mass-layoffs-continue-americas-miners) 21% of his company back in May, with the majority of the cuts coming in West Virginia, which is staring down a $195 million budget gap thanks to the slide in coal prices.
Murray believes these job cuts are the fault of the Obama administration and, thankfully, he’s got some concrete arguments to support his contention that the President is colluding with Hollywood characters and certain "contributors" in an effort to "get control of the availability, reliability and cost of electricity."
from SNL:







[Murray] said President Barack Obama's administration has issued regulations that illegally bypass the states and their utility commissions, the U.S. Congress and the Constitution in favor of putting the U.S. EPA in charge of the nation's electric grid. Murray, speaking at a Republican gathering at the July 22 Lincoln Day Dinner, touted his company's four lawsuits being brought against the administration's Clean Power Plan, an effort to rein in carbon dioxide emissions.

Murray continued, saying that the coal workers affected by Obama's policies are among the highest paid in the regions where they live, but also have no one to sell their homes to when they lose their jobs.

"Thus, these people are prohibited from working and fall to the negative side of the economic ledger for the rest of their lives," Murray said. "This is not the America that I have always cherished. Well, I am obviously not giving up. Nor should you. We have the law, science, economics, cold hard energy facts and the Constitution on our side. Our cause is right. It is right for the coal industry and our communities and America. … We must continue to do whatever we can to overcome the insanity of our current government."
Murray goes on to say that the scope of EPA guidelines on coal boarders on the absurd. In support of this contention, he cites the fact that the agency's regulations are 38 times longer than the universally accepted standard for modern enviornmental law - the Bible: "EPA regulations alone total 25 million words, 38 times more than those in the holy Bible."

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-08-03/president-obama-explains-how-his-clean-power-plan-does-not-make-him-nations-greatest

[expat4ever]

IMO my right to clean air and water trumps his right to destroy the land, water and air in the name of profits.

[mick silver]

one day we will all live to see rolling back outs in this country jut like the third world country's . this state I live in still seeing the lost of jobs from coal and there no jobs in those places to replace them

[Horn]

IMO my right to clean air and water trumps his right to destroy the land, water and air in the name of profits.

If any of this were being done in the name of the environment I might agree.

Laws specifically designed so that its all just cut not burned then shipped at lower fee to China and Mexico, who's air arrives over the U.S. eventually and has trade agreements now seal their use of slave labor wages and complete disregard for environment to continue into the next century.

[Twisted Titan]

one day we will all live to see rolling back outs in this country jut like the third world country's . this state I live in still seeing the lost of jobs from coal and there no jobs in those places to replace them

which is exactly why those individuals who have the ability to make electricity via solar power will almost hold as much power as those who have clean water