[Vision2020] United Mine Workers of America Defends Obama, Criticizes McCain

[Chasuk]

http://www.umwa.org/index.php?q=news/mccain-campaign%E2%80%99s-last-minute-distortion-obama%E2%80%99s-coal-record-act-desperation

McCain campaign's last minute distortion of Obama's coal record an act
of desperation
date:
November 3, 2008
For immediate release?:


United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) International President Cecil E.
Roberts issued the following statement today:

"Sen. John McCain and his running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin, have once
again demonstrated that they are willing to say anything and do
anything to win this election. Their latest twisting of the truth is
about coal and some comments Sen. Obama made last January about the
future use of coal in America.

"Here is what the McCain campaign left out of Sen. Obama's actual
words: 'But this notion of no coal, I think, is an illusion. Because
the fact of the matter is, is that right now we are getting a lot of
our energy from coal. And China is building a coal-powered plant once
a week. So what we have to do then is figure out how can we use coal
without emitting greenhouse gases and carbon. And how can we sequester
that carbon and capture it.'

"Sen. Obama has been consistent with that message not just in the
coalfields, but everywhere else he goes as well. Despite what the
McCain campaign and some far right-wing blogs would have Americans
believe, Sen. Obama has been and remains a tremendous supporter of
coal and the future of coal.

"I noted that Sen. McCain even went so far yesterday as to say he has
always been a supporter of coal. I wonder, then, how he can justify
his statement at a Senate hearing in 2000 that, 'In a perfect world we
would like to transition away from coal entirely,' and his leading
role in sponsoring legislation in 2003 that would have wiped out 78
percent of all coal production in America?

"Fortunately, UMWA members, their families and their friends and
neighbors in the coalfields know all too well what is going on here.
They're not going to fall for it, and we urge others throughout
America who care about coal to review what the candidates' records on
coal actually are. We are confident that once they do, and once they
see the many other benefits to working families of voting for Sen.
Obama, they will make the right choice for themselves and their
families.