Several days ago I reported that Joe Biden has said that coal is “worse than terrorism.”

On May 24 Joel Riley of Columbus radio station WTVN interviewed Phil Kerpen about Obama’s “War on Coal” and Kerpen had this to say:

No state is being hit harder by forced closures of coal plants than Ohio is, as last week’s PJM auction [author's note: PJM is a electricity regional transmission organization] showed. I ended the interview with Joel by pointing out that Senator Sherrod Brown (D) will soon be put on the record on the War on Coal when he votes on S.J.Res 37, Senator Jim Inhofe’s resolution to overturn the most costly anti-coal regulation known as Utility MACT.

And from Kerpen’s website, War on Coal.com comes this quote:

The lynchpin of the Obama’s War on Coal is the so-called Utility Maximum Achievable Control Technology (UMACT) rule, also known as “Mercury and Air Toxics Standards” or “MATS.” The rule requires expensive retrofits at coal-fired power plants, raising electricity prices nearly 20 percent with no environmental benefit.

The cost, according to EPA’s own estimate, is $10 billion per year. A more realistic analysis from the national Economic Research Associates found compliance costs of $21 billion per year, with 183,000 lost jobs per year.

Five minutes after Kerpen was interviewed, Riley talked with Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown (D) and at the 3:20 mark asked him about Sen. Jim Inhofe’s  S.J. Res 37 which states:

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That Congress disapproves the rule submitted by the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency relating to national emission standards for hazardous air pollutants from coal- and oil-fired electric utility steam generating units and standards of performance for fossil-fuel-fired electric utility, industrial-commercial-institutional, and small industrial-commercial-institutional steam generating units (77 Fed. Reg. 9304 (February 16, 2012)), and such rule shall have no force or effect.

And Brown stated “I have never heard of it.”

That’s my senator, who is up for re-election in November. Ohio is one of the largest producers, and consumers of coal-producing electricity and Brown never heard of this resolution. Brown does however claim, that Ohio is a “leader in wind and solar energy.” Hmmm… I took a look at this claim.

According to the Environmental Law & Policy Center (green tree as its logo, that should be your first clue) Ohio is indeed a leader in production of “renewable energy equipment” however, according to America’s Power an entirely different story is told:

And this info comes directly from the government’s Energy Information Association. Moe Lane on his personal blog begs this question:

The question is, is it fair to wonder whether coal will make things worse for the Democrats? I think so. In Virginia they’re worried about new EPA regulations on air quality. In Colorado people are noticing that President Obama and EPA chief Lisa Jackson are fighting the United Mine Workers. Pennsylvanian Republicans are already campaigning on the issue; so are Ohioan Republicans. All in all, this combination of stubborn refusal to budge from a radical Green agenda + an economy that can pretty specifically not support the inefficient luxury of a radical Green agenda = increased risk in a variety of Obama ’08 states.

Sherrod Brown has already doubled down on his support for Obama as fellow coal state Senators like West Virginia’s Joe Manchin are distancing themselves, so it makes sense that he’s burying his head in the sand when it comes to the upcoming Utility MACT vote. But unfortunately for Brown, in just a few short weeks Ohio voters will know exactly where he stands on this job-killing EPA regulation, and if the rule is indeed implemented and electric bills begin to rise, I’m guessing Ohioans, and this one for sure, will vote for a change of senators.

Related articles: Obama’s War on Fossil Fuels hitting home to Dems & unions.

EPA’s “New Source Performance Standards” are out, & it isn’t pretty.

Obama escalates his “War on Coal” with new EPA regs.

Crossposted at Unified Patriots