By Charles Owens, Bluefield Daily Telegraph
BLUEFIELD, W.Va. — West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice is taking exception to the anti-coal comments made recently by John Kerry at the international United Nations climate change summit.
At that forum, Kerry, who serves as the Biden administration’s Special Envoy for Climate, announced that the United States would begin phasing out all existing coal-based power plants. Kerry also called for coal use to be eliminated across the world.
Justice, speaking Tuesday during his weekly administration briefing, said Kerry and President Joe Biden are continuing the war on coal which he said originated with former President Barack Obama.
“You‘ve seen where recently the Biden administration has joined the Powering Past Coal Alliance,” Justice said. “You know at this big international climate change conference last week basically what the Biden administration is saying, what John Kerry and everybody is saying, is we absolutely are pledging to kill coal. Kill it. Absolutely just make it go away. Well in my opinion it is the dumbest thing on the planet. But it all originated with Barack Obama.”
Justice said Obama’s war on coal continued with Hillary Clinton.