Beason: Enviro-militants targeting coal again, want Alabama left in the dark (opinion)

Last week a new “study” was released by three left-wing environmental groups: Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC), Southern Alliance for Clean Energy (SACE), and the Greater Birmingham Alliance to Stop Pollution (GASP), who are once again attacking coal-fired power plants and coal jobs in Alabama.

These three groups released their 25-page propaganda piece attacking the first conservative leaning Alabama Public Service Commission (PSC) in decades for working to protect affordable electricity in Alabama and the jobs associated with producing that energy. The groups call for the PSC to explain why coal is a viable energy source for the long term. This report, paid for by groups who have ties to President Obama and his radical environmental activist friends in DC and San Francisco, has the audacity to suggest that while coal provides Alabamians with “cheaper energy,” we should shut the coal-fired plants down due to the cost of maintaining them under the Obama EPA mandates.

So, lets get this straight, Alabama should shut down its coal-fired plants and put 15,000 men and women out of work because Obama and his band of enviro-militants have pushed costly mandates down to the states? They have used the power of the federal government to hurt the people of Alabama economically, and then claim that since they have made coal-produced electricity more expensive, we should give it up. Any Alabamian, conservative or liberal, should find this tactic offensive and shameful.

We have all worked together to build a better economy and produce jobs in this state so that more of our citizens have the opportunity to succeed. Affordable energy is a big part of the progress we have made, and now that things are improving these folks come in and begin meddling in our affairs. I have had about all I can stand of folks from other states doing all they can to force us to do what they think is best for us. If they want to make it impossible for a working family to get ahead in life because of increasing regulations and government involvement in their lives, let them do that to their own people in their own states. When I was a legislator the same type of people opposed our efforts to protect your Second Amendment rights. It was the same type of folks who opposed our efforts to define marriage as being between one man and one woman. Conservatives in the legislature joined me and together we said, “YES” to Alabama values, and we said, “NO” to the out-of-state liberal efforts that are purposely designed to destroy Alabama’s burgeoning prosperity.

It is amusing that this so-called “study” should be titled “left in the dark” because that’s exactly what these groups want to do to Alabama. They want to shut down our ability to use our natural resources and produce energy that families can afford. They want to “leave Alabama in the dark” while they move on like locusts looking for the next field to destroy.

Are these out-of-state groups meddling in Alabama because they care so much about you and your family, or are they here because of an agenda that could not care less what happens to you? Who are SELC, SACE and GASP, anyway?

In 2013, they received a collective $2.5M from one San Francisco based environmental group with the directive to use those dollars to “accelerate the retirement of coal fire plants in the southeast (including Alabama).” These are groups that are led by some of the most liberal and extreme factions of the national Democrat Party movement. The people who are helping Obama “fundamentally transform” America.

Recently, I read the article in Forbes magazine discussing a report entitled “How a Club of Billionaires and Their Foundations Control the Environmental Movement and Obama’s EPA.” This report specifically names the San Francisco group who directed the $2.5M against Alabama as one of those groups directly tied to Obama and the radical left.

What we need is more open and honest discussion of the environmental issues and the economic damage being done by Obama’s EPA. The people of Alabama have a right to make an informed decision and plot their own course, without outside coercion. Maybe a little more of our “cheaper” energy should be used to shine a bright light on the real agenda of groups like the SELC, SACE, and GASP.

Scott Beason is Senior Policy Advisor for the Alabama Free Market Alliance.