by David Sassoon -
Mar 19th, 2008 
On West Virginia Public Broadcast early this morning, Hillary Clinton answered questions about her positions on coal. To hear it for yourself, click here.
As we've noted in our profile of her climate policies, her stance on coal flunks the global warming test. Before going into a careful dissection of her remarks, let's remember a few things.
In 2007, the hard work of environmental organizations, business groups, mayors and citizens all over the country managed to halt construction of 50 coal plants from moving forward. James Hansen, the pace-setting climate scientist, has repeatedly exhorted policymakers to abandon coal entirely in order to face down global warming. Otherwise we have little chance, he says.
Republican Governor Charlie Crist of Florida, committed to climate solutions, has stopped new coal plants from being built in his state. In Kansas, Democratic Governor Kathleen Sibelius is fighting to do the same, facing down legislators and very heavy coal industry lobbying in her state. The Wall Street Journal called Kansas "ground zero" in the coal fight in an article just this morning.
So where is the political courage and leadership of this aspiring president on the coal question?
Listen to how she frames it -- all wrong:
Well coal fits in very importantly, um, because obviously we have a great reserve of coal and we get more than 50% of our electricity from coal. The challenge is, how we're going to continue using coal and uh, meet a lot of our environmental challenges.
No, Senator Clinton, the challenge is, how are we going to stop using coal.
It's gets worse.
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