There is a fellow I work with who has been taunting me via IM for weeks now, his typical tack being that of launching a barrage of links to various right wing talking points. All of them are well-worn and fruitless, but tonight he seems to have found a brand new one.
It appears that newsbusters.org is pushing a story about "unearthed" audio tapes from an interview that Obama gave to the San Francisco Chronicle back in January. If you listen to the audio, he is talking about a cap and trade system that would charge power generating facilities for their greenhouse emissions.
The phrasing he uses indicates that under the program, builders of new coal plants would go "bankrupt" from the charges. It's being spun in an alarming fashion and being made to sound like the entire industry itself is going to go bankrupt. The story is making the rounds in the newspapers and teevee stations in the VA, KY, and OH areas. Links and text below.
(I've looked on the diary list and didn't see this; if it is a repeat I will gladly delete, but I think it's important so that the correct message can be advanced.)
Here is the text of Obama's statements:
"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...
"I was the first to call for a 100 percent auction on the cap and trade system, which means that every unit of carbon or greenhouse gases emitted would be charged to the polluter. That will create a market in which whatever technologies are out there that are being presented, whatever power plants that are being built, that they would have to meet the rigors of that market and the ratcheted down caps that are being placed, imposed every year.
"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.
Here's the part requiring our focus:
"The only thing I've said with respect to coal, I haven't been some coal booster. What I have said is that for us to take coal off the table as an ideological matter as opposed to saying if technology allows us to use coal in a clean way, we should pursue it."
Here is the link to the youtube audio (with scary graphics) that was posted today and already has almost 250,000 views.
Here is the link to the WSAZ-TV's online story; they serve Charleston, West Virginia and surrounding areas.
Here is the story in the West Virginia Record, a legal journal.
And, it's at the top of Drudge. So...what say you?