Clinton Targets Natural Gas, Too
Gas and oil drilling has been one of the few bright spots in the economies of West Virginia and East Ohio during the past few years. Hillary Clinton and her fellow Democrat liberals want to take that away from us, too.
For years, miners and coal companies warned those benefiting from the drilling revolution that they should not rejoice in the liberals’ assault on coal. The gas and oil industries were next, they were cautioned.
Many involved in drilling wells and processing their output scoffed. Why, one way President Barack Obama and other environmental radicals defended their agenda was to insist that when coal-fired power plants closed, they could be replaced by generating units using plentiful natural gas.
Indeed, that very thing is happening, even in our area.
But now the White House — and, more important, Democrat presidential nominee Hillary Clinton — believe the war on coal is all but won. It is time to move on.
As the Democratic Party’s platform for this year’s elections makes clear, they plan to waste no time.
It may be remembered that for some time, the radicals warned that we had to slash carbon dioxide emissions to slow global warming. Now, methane, a component of natural gas, is on the hit list.
“Democrats believe that carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases should be priced to reflect their negative externalities,” the platform reads. Translation: Clinton and company will do all in their power to increase the price of producing and consuming natural gas. Obama’s administration already has begun the process.
As many in our area understand, the drilling revolution that is producing previously undreamed-of quantities of domestic gas and oil would not have occurred without hydraulic fracturing technology, often referred to as fracking. It, too, is covered in the Democrat platform, which calls for regulation of the practice by the Environmental Protection Agency. We don’t need to tell you what that means.
All this — killing coal and affordable electricity, then doing the same to natural gas — is the public face Clinton and Democrat leaders are putting forth. It is bad enough.
But Clinton and her party’s officials can be even more brutal in their private communications about the issues, as we know from recent events. That may lead some to wonder about the nature of a whole different class of emails …
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