Obama: 'Battered' Coal Miners 'Blame Me and My Tree-Hugger Friends'

Craig Bannister | October 4, 2016

Coal miners who’ve lost their jobs, homes and livelihoods due to the war on coal blame him and his “tree-hugger friends,” Pres. Obama declared at a White House screening of Leonardo DiCaprio’s new global warning documentary, “Before the Flood,” on Monday.

And, despite the economic devastation caused in places like West Virginia, Kentucky and Illinois due to his policies, Obama promised he and his tree-huggers will ensure use of coal energy will “continue to go down”:

“When you think about coal, we significantly reduced the amount of power that we're generating from coal.  And it's going to continue to go down.  Well, number one, coalminers feel like they’ve been battered, and they often blame me and my tree-hugger friends for having created real economic problems in places like West Virginia, or parts of Kentucky, or parts of my home state of southern Illinois.”

But, it’s not just the coal miners who blame Obama’s war on coal for their economic woes. “Collateral Damage: Casualties of the War on Coal,” a forthcoming MRCTV documentary, tells the story of how homeowners, local businesses, grocery stores, restaurants and even schools are being hard hit by the administration’s attacks on the coal industry.

While touting DiCaprio’s fear-mongering film, Obama said coal miners should also blame natural gas, and not just his regulations, because natural gas has become cheaper due to the fracking process liberals despise:

“Interestingly enough, one of the reasons why we've seen a significant reduction of coal usage in the United States is not because of our regulations.  It's been because natural gas got really cheap as a consequence of fracking. 

"Now, there are a lot of environmentalists who absolutely object to fracking because their attitude is sometimes it's done really sloppy and releases methane that is even a worse greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. It leaks into people’s water supplies and aquafers, and when done improperly can really harm a lot of people.  And their attitude is we got to leave that stuff in the ground if we're going to solve climate change.

"And I get all that.  On the other hand, the fact that we're transitioning from coal to natural gas means less greenhouse gases. “

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