The U.S. needs to generate dollars to help reduce the federal budget deficit and to create new jobs to reduce rates of unemployment. An additional benefit to lowered unemployment rates is more tax-paying U.S. citizens to help increase government revenues.
It makes sense for the U.S. to ship up to 140 million tons of coal annually to energy-hungry markets in Asia. It is well known that North America has the largest coal reserves in the world, followed by the combined countries of the former USSR.
The governors of Washington state and Oregon want the federal government to spend dollars on yet another study of so-called “greenhouse gases” that would be generated by burning coal that is mined and exported from the U.S.
The bottom line is that energy-hungry Asia will build coal-fired plants whether or not the U.S. takes economic advantage by exporting our coal.
