Digging for the Truth: Groups Say Mining Ad is "Full of Lies"
Mary Kuhlman, Public News Service-IN
http://www.publicnewsservice.org/2014-05-29/environment/digging-for-the-truth-groups-say-mining-ad-is-full-of-lies/a39635-1
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(05/29/14) INDIANAPOLIS – An ad on local radio this week is being criticized, with claims by environmental activists that it's full of lies.
The National Mining Association is paying for the national media campaign.
The ads tell consumers they'll pay a lot more for their electricity if new federal standards to limit carbon pollution are put in place.
Ted Strickland, president of the Center for American Progress Action Fund, says that isn't true.
"The ads are an extreme exaggeration and not based upon fact or hard data certainly, but just purely speculation coming from a special interest," he maintains.
Late last week, the Natural Resources Defense Council sent a letter to stations in Indiana and other states, demanding they pull the ad because the claims made have been proven false by independent analysis.
The National Mining Association is spending $750,000 on the media campaign.
Nick Mullins is a fourth-generation coal miner, but he says it's time for the country to invest in alternative energy sources.
"By reducing demand using energy efficiency, we can lower electric rates and produce more jobs, and provide a cleaner future for our children that doesn't include a lot of the health issues that they're currently having to face," he says.
Strickland points out the ads ignore the advancements that would come by reducing carbon pollution at existing power plants and the positive impact on curtailing climate change.
"This is not unlike the kind of alarming information that has been put out in the past any time there has been an effort to require the polluters to accept some responsibility for their pollution," he stresses.
The National Mining Association maintains the new standards will eliminate jobs, but a former EPA administrator under President George W. Bush wrote that between 1970 and 2006, the gross domestic product grew by 195 percent at the same time many environmental regulations were being put in place.