Obama’s Words on Bankrupting the Coal Industry: You Be the Judge

Update: Finally, we have obtained and posted the SF Chronicle's full in context audio and video of the Obama coal “bankrupt them” interview.

Revelations yesterday of an audio-tape of Obama stating that his cap and trade system would bankrupt coal-powered plants has caused furor. Democrats claim clips were taken out of context. The San Francisco Chronicle didn’t make a transcript available.

According to SFGate Politics Blog, the ''hidden'' audio with Sen. Barack Obama regarding his statements on coal, was never hidden. “The entire interview has been in the public domain, available on line to the public -- and to the McCain campaign -- since early January.”

The link that SFGate provided, however, is for an mp3 download. The article didn’t provide a link to a full transcript.

Tony Rutherford, a reporter with Huntington News, wrote today that the audio-tape came from a San Francisco Chronicle interview with Obama on Jan 17, 2008, and the published story on Jan 18 provided no transcript.

Democrats have cried “out of context” regarding the interview; however, a verbatim transcript obtained by ABC NEWS indicates that the Presidential candidate stressed that unless technology can “sequester that carbon and capture it… we’re gonna still be working on alternatives.”

The questionable part of the interview follows the above quote but Rutherford’s article failed to provide a quote or a transcript. Rutherford did comment:

But Obama’s statement in context would allow coal that when burned gives off low emissions of carbon.

So far no major news services have published the full transcript. However, transcripts can be found at Gateway Pundit, Politics and Critical Thinking, The Partisan Report, and ABC news Political Punch blog.

Here’s a portion of what Obama said in that audio-clip that caused the outrage.

Let me sort of describe my overall policy.
What I've said is that we would put a cap and trade system in place that is as aggressive, if not more aggressive, than anybody else's out there. . .
So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can; it's just that it will bankrupt them because they're going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that's being emitted. . .

Gateway Pundit wrote that Obama’s stance on coal goes “hand-in-hand” with what he said about nuclear energy. “His preconditions make it impossible to expand nuclear energy at this time.”

Additionally GP reminded readers that “Obama said he would raise power and fuel prices to change our bad habits and that it's going to hurt.” See Opinion:Can We Afford to Forget Obama’s Price Signals?

Edited clips from the Obama coal interview audio tape can be found on YouTube here and here.

 

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