One need only look to Europe to see both why America still needs coal, and how cap-and-trade policies are doomed for failure. The European Union’s cap-and-trade program is in complete collapse as much of Eastern Europe, Italy, and Germany are all demanding exemptions from their carbon limits. Not only has the EU’s cap-and-trade failed to actually reduce carbon emissions, but even if the reductions were met, they would have no impact on world temperatures. Meanwhile, Germany plans to build 27 coal-fired plants by 2020. Italy plans to increase its reliance on coal from 14% today to 33% in just five years. In all of Europe, 40 new major coal power plants are set to be built in the next five years.

While the rest of the world is adding power supply, we are subtracting it. Obama’s allies at the National Resources Defense Council have stopped construction on 65 coal plants and 13 natural gas plants nationwide. Right now, the U.S. has 760 gigawatts of power to meet consumption. We will need 135 gigawatts of new capacity over the next decade to keep the lights on, but right now only 57 gigawatts of power are planned. Coal supplies almost half of our nation’s electricity and more than 20% of our nation’s total energy consumption. We need more coal plants, not less. Despite decades of subsidies, alternative energies such as wind and solar power contribute only 1% of our nation’s energy needs.

[Obama's] cap-and-trade program would end thousands of coal-related jobs throughout the country and send electricity costs soaring. But the damage would not end there. This summer Heritage’s Center for Data Analysis studied Sen. Joe Lieberman’s (D-CT) much more lenient cap-and-trade plan and found it would kill 1 million American jobs and cause a loss of $4.8 trillion in our gross domestic product by 2030. The economic costs of Obama’s more stringent plan can only be worse.