Biden coal gaffe turns up heat on democrats

The media jumped on Senator Joe Biden, Barack Obama’s running mate, after he seemed to fly against the democratic platform by condemning clean coal technology this week.

Biden, on the stump in Ohio, was responding to a question from a young environmental campaigner. “Wind and solar are flourishing here in Ohio, so why are you supporting clean coal?” she asked. “We’re not supporting clean coal,” he said, before arguing that China was polluting with its coal, and proclaiming his support for renewable energy. “No coal plants in America,” he said at the end of the monologue. “If they’re going to build them over there, make them clean, because they’re killing you.”

Obama’s energy policy states that he supports clean coal, and wants to develop “five ‘first-of-a-kind’ commercial-scale coal-fired plants with clean carbon capture and sequestration technology.”

The commitment sounds similar to the Department of Energy’s existing plan to partially fund a series of small but commercial-scale clean coal plants, following the termination of a larger clean coal project called FutureGen in February.

Biden’s comments rankled coal supporters in the US. “It was plain that Biden was emphatic in disowning clean coal and distancing himself from coal-powered generation of any kind in the US,” complained Luke Popovich, spokesman for the National Mining Association. “He specifically rejected support for what he called clean coal and specifically called for no coal plants in the US. And he made other comments that were disparaging of coal, having to do with the coal burning in China and the health effects of burning coal.”

McCain quickly moved to capitalise on the situation, launching a campaign to project coal jobs.

However, while asserting his support for clean coal, McCain also consented that he disapproved of mountaintop removal mining. The practice has caused frustration among environmental campaigners in the Appalachian mountains, where it is rife.