Where Does Biden Really Stand On Coal?

VIEW THE VIRAL VIDEO HERE:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJ55UzAsp6M
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ABINGDON, Va. – Three days before he spoke in Castlewood, Va., on Saturday about his coal-mining background and pledged to invest $4 billion in clean-coal technology, Democratic vice presidential nominee Joe Biden stated his opposition to coal in another campaign speech in Ohio.

“We’re not supporting clean coal,” Biden said in response to a question he was asked in Maumee, Ohio, last week.

“No coal plants here in America. Build them, if they’re going to build them, over there [in China]. Make them clean, because they’re killing you.”

A video from the event – and political commentary on Biden’s apparent campaign flip-flop – was widely circulated on the Internet on Tuesday.

“I can’t talk on that,” said Kevin Griffis, Virginia spokesman for the Obama-Biden campaign, when asked about Biden’s statements in Ohio. “I can just point you to the statement and their record. From what they have voted on and what they have supported, I think they’re clear on making sure coal is part of our energy future.”

According to a statement released by the Obama-Biden campaign, both candidates support clean coal technology.

“Senator Biden’s point is that China is building coal plants with outdated technology every day, and the United States needs to lead by developing clean coal technologies,” according to the statement.

“The Obama-Biden comprehensive energy plan will invest $150 billion over 10 years in clean energy technologies, including incentives to accelerate private sector investment in commercial scale zero-carbon coal facilities,” it states.

Delegate Terry Kilgore, R-Gate City, said Biden’s statement in Ohio is “alarming.”

“It’s just sort of irritating that someone will come here [to Southwest Virginia] and espouse certain beliefs and then go to other parts of the country and say otherwise,” Kilgore said. “I know Congressman Boucher and others seem to think Obama and Biden are going to be good for coal, but when they go to other parts of the country and say things like that, it catches you off guard, it’s alarming to us, those of us who represent the coal area.”

Kilgore said clean coal technology is an essential part of the strategy that’s needed – along with development of renewable energy resources and domestic oil production – for energy independence and job creation nationwide.

Phil Smith, spokesman for the United Mine Workers of America, said the organization “completely supports Sen. Obama for a lot of reasons, one of which is his commitment to coal and his commitment to making coal part of America’s long-term energy future, notwithstanding what Sen. Biden was seen saying last week.”

Smith said Obama is far more supportive of coal than McCain.

Biden spoke in Castlewood on Saturday at the UMWA’s annual fish fry.

McCain’s campaign, meanwhile, announced the launch on Tuesday of a Coalition to Protect Coal Jobs, which is “a nationwide group including members of Congress, state government and other influential leaders [that] will spread the message about the importance of clean coal technology and the advantages of tapping the country’s vast coal reserves,” according to a news release.

Barbara Altizer, spokeswoman for the Eastern Coal Council, did not endorse either candidate in an interview on Saturday.

Another issue that has generated questions from Biden’s speech in Castlewood, was his reference to himself as a “hard-coal miner” from Scranton, Pa. That was not a literal statement, according to Griffis, the Virginia campaign spokesman.

“He definitely did not say that he was a coal miner,” Griffis said. “I think what he was trying to say is the folks in Scranton, the people where he grew up … have dealt with the same sort of issues that the folks in Southwest Virginia have to deal with.”

Parallels also have been drawn between the “hard-coal miner” comment and a 1988 Biden political speech about his coal-mining forebears that resembled a speech by British Labor Party leader Neil Kinnock.

According to a Nov. 20, 1997, article in Slate Magazine that looked at embellished autobiographies of public figures across the political spectrum, Biden’s standard stump speech during the 1988 campaign started out quoting Kinnock.

“Pretty soon, though, Kinnock had dropped out of the speech and it was Biden himself whose ancestors worked in the coal mines … and would come up after 12 hours and play football for four hours,” according to the article.

“Biden grew up in a white-collar suburb, his father was a car salesman, one grandfather was a state senator, and the only Biden on record as having worked near a mine was a mining engineer,” the article states.

According to the Delaware senator’s Web site, which stresses that he grew up in Delaware, his family moved from Scranton when he was 10 years old.

Griffis acknowledged the 20-year-old plagiarism question, but said of the Castlewood comments, “This situation isn’t analogous in any way.”

Of the borrowed 1988 speech, “It didn’t come up in his primary at all, and I don’t think anybody’s talked about it in 20 years.”

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