Heartland Institute: Dept. of Energy Report ‘Whitewashes’ How Regulations Crushed Coal

A government report on the nation’s power infrastructure “whitewashes” the crushing effects of government regulation on the coal industry, according to the Heartland Institute.

Department of Energy recently released a report on the nation’s electricity grid and power plant infrastructure. Tim Huelskamp, Ph.D., the President of the Heartland Institute writes that the report is disappointing, arguing that it ignores the influence of the over-regulations on the coal industry over the past eight years:

This report is, in one word, “disappointing.” However, I’m not surprised it whitewashes the massive crush of over-regulations foisted on the coal industry for the past eight years. Many of these very same bureaucrats were charged with implementing President Barack Obama’s promise to “bankrupt the coal industry.” Thank goodness President Donald Trump and Energy Sec. Rick Perry are working to reverse this Obama-era threat to electricity production, the hundreds of millions of Americans whose daily lives depend on it, and the coal industry that keeps much of it fueled.

Coal plants are closing due to government incentives that force companies to move instead in the direction of renewable energy, according to Fred Palmer, a senior fellow at the Heartland Institute. He said that “the Department of Energy study takes a very sanguine view of U.S. electrical reliability while underplaying the pernicious impact the Obama administration’s anti-carbon rules had on the decisions of utilities to close coal-fired plants.”