If there was any doubt Hillary Clinton is dedicated to devastating West Virginia and much of Ohio, she has erased it.

Her plan to intensify President Barack Obama’s war on coal and reasonably priced electricity is just a start. Clinton also wants to put a stranglehold on natural gas.

She emphasized that during a debate with the other Democrat contender for president, Sen. Bernie Sanders. On stage in Flint, Mich., the two were asked if they “support fracking.” Sanders at least was direct. “No, I do not support fracking,” he replied.

Fracking, of course, is the technique of hydraulically fracturing rock formations deep underground to get at vast reservoirs of gas and petroleum. It has been in use for decades but in combination with other technology including horizontal drilling, it has made available truly gigantic supplies of gas, in the process helping the economies in West Virginia and Ohio.

Fracking actually has the potential to make the United States energy independent.

But Sanders wants to throw that away.

So does Clinton, though, as you might expect, she uses more verbiage to explain how. As she summed up in Flint, however, “So by the time we get through all of my conditions, I do not think there will be many places in America where fracking will continue to take place.”

Sound familiar? Something like Obama describing, before he became president, how he would wreck the coal-fired electric generating industry? You remember: “So if somebody wants to build a coal-fired plant, they can – it’s just that it will bankrupt them.”

Clinton once supported fracking. While secretary of state in 2012, she actually went to Bulgaria to urge that country’s parliament to end a moratorium on fracking. Now, however, sensing votes to be had, she opposes it.

No one in this region needs to be told what Clinton’s stance would do to us. Other Americans may need to have it explained to them: It would mean gas bills two to three times today’s levels. It would mean much higher electric bills because so many utilities – because of Obama – have abandoned coal and are building gas-fired power plants. It would mean nations that are not always friendly to us controlling our energy again.

It would be a disaster.

And it is what Hillary Clinton wants.