This is and will be his main retort against all charges of this type.
Over and over he's trumpeting that sad chestnut that climate change is "phony" and not real science.
I'm sure that his people are hard at work recruiting his version of real scientists (many may still be out of the country looking for the real site of the real ark, but they'll be back soon) and he'll be trotting these folks out at various events.
Notice the location of his speech: the more working class the neighborhood, the more he emphasizes this claptrap.
The Environmental Protection Agency's new greenhouse gas rules could hasten the decline of America's top source of electricity.
By Jordan Weissmann Mar 27 2012, 2:04 PM ET
Today, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/epa-to-impose-first-greenhouse-gas-limits-on-power-plants/2012/03/27/gIQAKdaJeS_story.html ] a set of landmark greenhouse gas regulations that will surely have every coal country politician, from the hills to Appalachia to the Powder River Basin of Wyoming, sputtering mad. The rule will require new power plants to emit about 43 percent less carbon dioxide than today's coal-fired generators. Natural gas plants already meet this requirement. But if a utility wants to burn coal for electricity, it will need to install carbon capture technology -- and that's really expensive.
And indeed, it could. But while that might be devastating for mining companies, it won't mean a whole lot to consumers. Coal use, you see, is already in decline. Blame America's natural gas boom.
Part of the reason coal is having trouble keeping up with natural gas is indeed regulation. As the Economist [ http://www.economist.com/node/21543563 ] notes, the Obama administration has already issued new rules limiting pollutants such as mercury and sulfur dioxide, which would require utilities to eventually upgrade old plants or build entirely new ones. The companies choosing to start fresh are opting for gas, which has dropped to historically low prices, and produces power more efficiently than coal.
Upshot: Regulations are pushing us from a cheap, abundant, and incredibly dirty source of energy, to a cheap, abundant, relatively clean source of energy. Unless you own a coal mine, that shouldn't be a problem.
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