Trump's Latest Plan For Saving Coal Comes From the Cold War

[DonViejo]

Source: Bloomberg News



By Jennifer A Dlouhy and Jennifer Jacobs

April 19, 2018, 4:00 AM EDT Updated on April 19, 2018, 9:25 AM EDT

-- President has extraordinary authority under 68-year-old law

-- Tactic used to keep electricity flowing amid California crisis

Months into the Korean War, President Harry Truman capped wages and imposed price controls on the steel industry, seizing authority under a newly passed law to take action in the name of national defense.

Now, more than a half century later, Trump administration officials are considering using the same statute to keep struggling coal and nuclear power plants online, according to four people familiar with the discussions who asked for anonymity to discuss private deliberations.

Under the approach, the administration would invoke sweeping authority in the 68-year-old Defense Production Act, which allows the president to effectively nationalize private industry to ensure the U.S. has resources that could be needed amid a war or after a disaster.

"The security of our homeland is inextricably tied to the security of our energy supply," Senator Joe Manchin, a Democrat from West Virginia, said in a Wednesday letter urging President Donald Trump to employ the statute. "The ability to produce reliable electricity is critical to ensuring our nation’s security against the various threats facing us today -- whether those threats be extreme weather events or adversarial foreign actors."

Read more: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-19/trump-may-invoke-cold-war-era-defense-act-to-boost-coal-plants

[get the red out]

1. Nationalizing an industry

Just a touch anti-private industry for a Republican President. I'm sure that the lap-dog Rs in congress would just bite their lips bloody and smile though.

[notdarkyet]

2. Manchineel, are you really a democrat? Oh yeah, you come from coal country.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

9. Wait until we have a Dem majority in House and Senate, ...

THEN we start ripping into those who are not "true blue" Dems.

[Botany]

3. " .... those threats be extreme weather events .... " Joe Manchin

And those extreme weather events are in many cases from global
climate change which is caused by the burning of fossil fuels such
as coal.

[dhill926]

7. exactly....

jesus christ....

[KPN]

4. Screw Manchin.

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

5. So much for the "free market"

The Repub mantra: "Privatize profits, socialize losses."

[sinkingfeeling]

6. "...amid a war or after a disaster". Is this a warning he's going to start yet another war?

[safeinOhio]

8. I might be all for this, if

they would nationalize all energy companies, including the profits.

I suggest it would work very well with Health Care too.

[demigoddess]

10. all right, this tears it! Now I really have to start swearing!! The stupidity of this

republican party is just so over the top!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
How in the world in the 21st century did the idiots of this country elect a man whose brain is living in the 18th and 19th century. No wonder the idiot did not like escalators.

[KY_EnviroGuy]

11. Meanwhile - The U.K. Went 55 Hours Without Using Coal for First Time in History

See: https://www.democraticunderground.com/10142041442 (thanks, DonViejo)

Or, direct to article: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-19/u-k-goes-a-record-55-hours-without-coal-as-clean-power-expands

And we used to be the leader in most all things. MAGA my ass.

....... ..............