Students Team Up to Take On Coal Industry in S.C. Primary

*** Students Team Up to Take On Coal Industry in S.C. Primary ***
S.C. primary: the front-lines of the fight for America’s energy future

Columbia – SC.  As Republican and Democratic Presidential nominees compete for each party’s nomination, another fight is taking place on the ground. On one side is a $35 million campaign run by a coal-industry front group, Americans For Balanced Energy Choices (ABEC). On the other, a coalition of student and conservationists fighting to clear the air by telling the truth about the coal campaign.

The students and conservation groups are calling for limiting carbon emissions 80% by 2050, transitioning away from coal plants, and creating millions of new green-collar jobs in a clean energy economy. They explain that ABEC is misleading the public about “clean coal,” since the industry has been unable to reduce substantially carbon-dioxide emissions (a major source of global warming) or other pollutants from burning coal.

“Saying coal is clean is like saying cigarettes are healthy,” explains USC student and activist Thomas Chandler.  “It’s dirty when they blast it out of mountains, dirty when they ship it in open rail cars to South Carolina, and dirty when they burn it in our old, outmoded coal plants.”

The struggle over America’s energy future is playing itself out at candidate events across the state. “It’s a bit like David versus Goliath here,” said Jamie Henn, a recent college graduate traveling around the state. “ABEC’s got the money and materials, but the facts and public opinion are on our side.”

Wearing giant billboards and passing out free baseball caps, ABEC employees have been attending candidate events.  Meanwhile, students dressed as Frosty the Snowman and a Polar Bear follow behind holding “No New Coal” signs.  Other volunteers wearing green hardhats talk with voters about meeting energy needs with efficiency, solar, wind, and “green-collar jobs.”

“We don’t have any coal reserves in South Carolina,” says Henn. “How will we achieve energy security and independence by importing this dirty, nineteenth-century fuel source?”

The students and conservationists criticize ABEC for running what they label an “astroturf” campaign, meaning a supposedly grassroots effort run by corporations. “Once people hear that ABEC is a multi-million dollar corporate campaign, they begin to question this myth of clean coal,” said Emily Rocheleau, working with the Carbon Coalition. “But it will take political leadership from the presidential candidates and good reporting from the media to expose ABEC’s tactics for what they are.  Frost can only do so much.”

Coal plants are the single largest source of both carbon and mercury emissions in the United States.  South Carolina, which has some of the highest mercury contamination rates in the country, currently spends $740 million annually to import coal from other states and countries.

See the Match-up First Hand:
Students are attending events across South Carolina until the Democratic Primary, for a complete schedule and interviews contact:
Jamie Henn, 802-989-9278, jamesonhenn@gmail.com
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