Big Coal has a long history of well-financed political influence, especially at the state level, including corrupt and illegal dealings.  Coal interests are now engaged in a massive lobbying and PR campaign to promote “clean coal”.  We know that the war chest for this effort is at least $55 Million committed to just two organizations, plus significant PR and lobbying efforts undertaken by individual companies.   What is the “Clean Coal” argument?  The industry claims that Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS) technology will allow them to safely and economically store carbon from coal plants underground.  CCS is an untested and unproven technology in this country.  Even if it proves technically feasible, it is expected to take 20 years for it to be deployed on any significant scale.  The costs will be staggering, no doubt passed on to the consumer, and with the everpresent danger of leakage of CO2 from its underground home.  In the mean time, the industry wants to build new coal plants even though the CO2 from these new plants would exceed, many times over, all existing efforts to reduce CO2 emissions and would virtually guarantee that the U.S. will never effectively participate in dealing with the climate crisis.  So, their goal is to convince the nation and our leaders that we should risk the future of the planet by wagering on a speculative investment of billions of dollars to perfect an unproven cluster of technologies, while proven technologies which emit no CO2 but will cut into their profits are cost competitive today.  In addition to more CO2, new coal plants mean more emissions of other pollutants, and more coal extraction.  As shown in Burning the Future: Coal in America, Mountaintop Removal and Slurry Impoundments can never be legitimately called “clean”.  Judging by the billions in government subsidies already dedicated to research and development of CCS and the number of politicians parroting the “clean coal” phrase, the industry’s spin is having an impact.  It’s up to the public and true political leadership to discern the reality over the spin, and push for better choices. 

• Follow the Coal Money
• See A Huge and Influential Political Machine for numerous links regarding political influence.
• Energy sector political contributions
• An astonishing, “only in the Coal Fields” story, wherein the West Virginia chief justice recuses himself after plaintiffs present photos of the judge vacationing in Europe with the CEO of Massey Coal, the defendant in the case.  Subsequently, the “acting” chief justice will not recuse himself despite the same CEO spending $3.5 Million on a political campaign with the sole purpose of getting that judge elected. News articles here and here.
• Watch the ads from the Astroturf group Americans for Balanced Energy Choices and read rebuttals of the content.  Recommended.
• A brief blog post noting the use of child actors to promote the ABEC message.  This discussion misses the point – it is accepted that a company can use slanted advertising to sell their product - but ABEC is not selling coal, they are selling political policy.  Corporations spend vast resources to “sell” the public on policy favorable to the corporations while posing as a citizen-based organization with a public welfare concern, thus hiding their direct financial stake in the policy.  This is outright deception and may undermine democracy.
• As an example, Kansans for Affordable Energy sounds like a group of citizens with a valid concern, everyone wants affordable energy.  Check out where they get their money here.  And read a blog entry about the group’s activities.
• Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid  - Not everyone’s buying it.  “The coal industry … is spending tens of millions of dollars to give false and misleading information to people around the country. [Clean Coal] doesn’t exist.”
• Gambling with Coal: How Future Climate Laws Will Make New Coal Power Plants More Expensive   A thorough and well documented review of global warming and how expected CO2 regulations affect the viability of new coal plants.