Jeremy Nichols: Salazar’s Dirty Energy Disgrace
Here’s an international embarrassment waiting to happen.
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar is not only planning to tag along with President Obama at the upcoming U.N. Conference on Climate Change in Copenhagen he’s going to be a keynote speaker.
The title of his upcoming speech: “New Energy Future: the role of public lands in clean energy production and carbon capture.”
Coincidentally, this was announced the same time as WildEarth Guardians released its report, “UnderMining the Climate,” which found that Secretary Salazar and the Department of Interior are responsible for the lion’s share of greenhouse emissions in the U.S.
The reason? Coal mining in the Powder River Basin of Wyoming.
Located on the remote high plains of northeastern Wyoming, the Powder River Basin is the nation’s largest coal producing region. Nearly 500,000,000 tons of coal are strip mined annually — more than the entire Appalachian region. The coal is shipped by railroad and burned in power plants from New Jersey to Oregon and everywhere in between.
It’s an amazingly frightening distinction. Coal-fired power plants are already the largest source of greenhouse gases in the U.S., making the Powder …
Read the original article at Huffington Post
