During CNN’s Democratic townhall event in Ohio on Sunday night, Hillary Clinton said she wants to move away from using coal as an energy source — even if it means eliminating jobs in the process.
“We’re gonna put a lot of coal miners and coal companies outta business,” Clinton said.
Clinton’s statement wasn’t just a slip of the tongue; she plans to continue Obama’s efforts to steer America away from coal as an energy source.
In 2008, Obama said energy rates would “necessarily skyrocket” under his cap-and-trade plan, which sought to reduce coal consumption.
“If somebody wants to build a coal-fired power plant, they can. It’s just that it will bankrupt them,” Obama said.
During his tenure in office, one in five Americans working in the coal industry lost their jobs due in large part to his energy policies. On Sunday, Clinton confirmed that her plan would put many more Americans out of work.
She has proposed that the government should dole out $30 billion in aid to families who will lose their source of income due to her energy policies. These funds would be spent covering health-care and retirement costs. For working-age individuals, however, these handouts would not equal the income lost by eliminating their jobs.
Clinton’s energy plan props up the solar and wind industry by dumping $60 billion into it via subsidies. These types of renewable energy are more expensive to produce, thus would cost U.S. consumers an average of $29 to $39 billion dollars per year. In addition to the heftier price tag, solar and wind energies are less reliable than fossil fuels.
