Earth from Space. Courtesy NASA & the American Taxpayer

Coral Davenport, in the New York Times, writes (here),

“President Obama could leave office with the most aggressive, far-reaching environmental legacy of any occupant of the White House. Yet it is very possible that not a single major environmental law will have passed during his two terms in Washington.

“Instead, Mr. Obama has turned to the vast reach of the Clean Air Act of 1970, which some legal experts call the most powerful environmental law in the world. Faced with a Congress that has shut down his attempts to push through an environmental agenda, Mr. Obama is using the authority of the act passed at the birth of the environmental movement to issue a series of landmark regulations on air pollution, from soot to smog, to mercury and planet-warming carbon dioxide.”

The coal industry skels from both parties consider this a “War on Coal.” Environmentalists could argue that it is a war for our grandchildren, a war for the biosphere, and even a war for a competitive 21st Century economy. Political hyperbole aside, it seems that any “War on Coal” is being waged by the methane and fracking industries, OPEC, and the “Invisible Hand” of the marketplace, not the President of the United States and the United States Environmental Protection Agency, EPA.