The left’s cheerleaders at CNN had only good things to say about President Joe Biden’s latest anti-energy power grab.
During the April 25 edition of CNN News Central, CNN Chief Climate Correspondent Bill Weir celebrated the impending demise of a major American energy source, enthusing, “This is really, really significant and essentially signals the end of coal as a power source in the United States.” Weir's upbeat reporting referred to the new EPA rules on coal and natural gas, which the Biden-led EPA announced on Thursday.
Weir and CNN Anchor John Berman spent a segment discussing how the EPA’s rules would impact climate emissions. Yet, the CNN duo spent not a single second on how this might impact American jobs, energy independence, grid reliability or states and communities depend on coal revenue.
Although the EPA claimed the new rules were designed to avoid “disrupting the delivery of reliable electricity,” Weir admitted to CNN viewers that the coal industry did not have the technology to comply with these regulations.
“Four new rule changes,” Weir said of the EPA announcement, “they also include cutting down on the neurotoxin Mercury … but the big one is this new rule that would require coal-fired plants to reduce 90% of their planet-cooking pollution and right now there's not really a technology capable of doing that.”
He continued, “The industry has never really taken carbon capture and sequestration seriously in the United States, and so it will essentially push most of the remaining 200 or so coal-fired plants out of business—about a quarter of them are scheduled to retire anyway.”
The regulation also cracks down on new natural gas plants. This means that the Biden EPA is not only obliterating coal-fired power plants that many Americans depend on but also ensuring that the country can’t replace them with another cheap energy source.
Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) agreed that the rule was designed to kill the coal industry, but responded with the compassion entirely missing at CNN. “Electricity demand is soaring, but Biden's EPA is killing reliable electricity production,” he wrote on X (formerly known as Twitter). “EPA's new rule would kill coal powerplants - which produce 20% of US electricity - forcing dependence on unreliable wind & solar. This will destroy the American way of life & empower China.”
CNN didn’t explore this angle nor did they provide suggestions on how to cheaply replace one-fifth of America's energy. Instead, Weir told Berman that “Republican governors and utility lobbies” might object to these regulations to the Supreme Court. Tellingly, Berman and Weir did not explore why these utility companies might object.
According to West Virginia State Treasurer Riley Moore, his state gets “nearly a billion dollars in what’s called severance taxes from those fossil fuels,” which makes up a significant part of the state budget. This means that Biden’s EPA regulations would ultimately make it significantly harder for West Virginia to deliver on its obligations.
Conservatives are under attack! Contact ABC News at 818-460-7477, CBS News at 212-975-3247 and NBC News at 212-664-6192 and demand they hold Biden and his cronies accountable for attempting to restrict fossil fuel production and Americans’ choices.
