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The late June decision by the U.S. Supreme Court revealed just how reckless the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has become. In Michigan v. EPA (See News, p.4), several states and industry groups, including the National Mining Association, challenged the EPA's mercury rule for power plants, which would have essentially forced most of the coal-fired power plants to close as part of the Obama administration's Climate Action Plan. A Supreme Court that made several landmark decisions — it bent over backward to support the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) and it ruled in favor of gay marriage — acknowledged that the regulatory overreach by the Obama administration and the EPA was just too much. The ruling was a huge win for people and businesses that rely on inexpensive power from coal. One of the terms that is conveniently omitted from the carbon and climate change discussion is "stationary." Coal-fired power plants are the largest stationary emitters of CO 2 . Remove the word stationary from that sentence and it makes the coal business look bad. The term stationary is used to distinguish power plants from internal combustion engines, which are a very large source of emissions worldwide. The auto and petroleum lobbies have much deeper pockets than the mining and power generation business, so the EPA, the environmental nongovernmental organi- zations, sovereign wealth funds and the Catholic Church overlook the automobiles churning out the smog in most of the metropolitans areas. Environmental activists, for the sake of global climate change, convinced Norway's sovereign wealth fund (Norges Bank Investment Management) to dump all of its coal-related investments (See World News, p. 6). The people of Norway are the richest people on Earth. They (all 5.1 million of them) own the fund, which is estimat- ed to be worth $890 billion, making each Norwegian worth approximately $175 mil- lion. Where did the fund get the money? Oil from the North Sea. Vattenfall, another company suffering from carbon guilt, recently sold one of its power plants in Denmark (See World News, p. 6). Vattenfall is a Swedish power com- pany, owned by the Swedish government; the same Swedish government that con- tributes to the Clinton Foundation. It's also trying to offload its lignite-fired power plants in Germany. Readers should note that they are not converting the plants; they are selling them. The carbon footprint has not been reduced; they are just getting them off their books. Finally, if coal didn't have enough detractors, the Catholic Church has weighed in on the climate debate. Pope Francis published the Encyclical on Faith, the Environment and the Modern Industrial Economy. In it, he says climate change has grave implications. The world needs to get its priorities and facts straight. We have a much bigger job as far as educating the masses about the value of low-cost energy from coal than we ever perceived. 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P hone: +1.303.283.0640 F ax: +1.303.283.0641 P resident/Publisher—Peter Johnson, pjohnson@mining-media.com Vice President of Sales & Marketing—John Bold, jbold@mining-media.com Midwest/Eastern U.S. & Canada, Sales—Victor Matteucci, vmatteucci@mining-media.com Western U.S. & Canada, Sales—Mary Lu Buse, mlbuse@mining-media.com Scandinavia, UK and European Sales—Colm Barry, colm.barry@telia.com G ermany, Austria & Switzerland Sales—Gerd Strasmann, info@strasmann-media.de Australia/Asia Sales—Lanita Idrus, lanita@mining-media.com Japan Sales—Masao Ishiguro, ishiguro@irm.jp Indonesia Sales—Dimas Abdillah, dabdillah@mining-media.com Latin America Sales—Paulina Downey, paulina@downeyassociates.cl / Sylvia Palma, sylvia@downeyassociates.cl Classified Advertising—Kirk Carbo, kcarbo@mining-media.com Show Manager—Tim Fearney, tim@semcoproductions.com Production Manager—Dan Fitts, dfitts@mining-media.com BY STEVE FISCOR / EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Carbon and the Climate Change Dogma e d i t o r ' s n o t e 2 www.coalage.com Steve Fiscor, Coal Age Editor-in-Chief sfiscor@mining-media.com E d i t o r - i n - C h i e f — S t e v e F i s c o r , s f i s c o r @ m i n i n g - m e d i a . c o m W e s t e r n F i e l d E d i t o r — R u s s C a r t e r , r c a r t e r @ m i n i n g - m e d i a . c o m F i e l d E d i t o r — D o n n a S c h m i d t , d s c h m i d t @ m i n i n g - m e d i a . c o m E u r o p e a n E d i t o r — S i m o n W a l k e r , s i m o n . i e t s @ b t i n t e r n e t . c o m L a t i n A m e r i c a n E d i t o r — O s c a r M a r t i n e z , o m a r t i n e z @ m i n i n g - m e d i a . c o m A s s i s t a n t E d i t o r — J e n n i f e r J e n s e n , j j e n s e n @ m i n i n g - m e d i a . c o m G r a p h i c D e s i g n e r — A u s t i n S t . C l a i r , a s t c l a i r @ m i n i n g - m e d i a . c o m