Climate Progress: “In a Fox News interview with Neil Cavuto on Thursday, Robert Murray explained how he believes regulations on carbon emissions are a deliberate effort by President Obama to seize power and harm the United States.”
““The President, Neal, is grossly wrong. It’s incompetence. It’s evil. It’s a power grab of America’s power grid.” Murray later described all Democratic Senators as “evil” as well.
Murray is the CEO of Murray Energy, the nation’s largest privately-owned coal company. Most of his arguments focused on the possibility of higher electricity rates and harm to those employed in the coal industry. But big businesses, small businesses, and a large majority of Americans support the regulations. And the coal industry cut far more jobsthan environmental regulation ever has, just to save money. During the 2012 presidential election, Murray Energy forced miners to appear at a political event for Mitt Romney. Murray then laid off workers after the election, until they quietly began hiring workersagain shortly thereafter.
The coal industry has resisted efforts to protect its workers from black lung, and after Murray’s last TV appearance his company cut 1,000 former workers off from their promised health benefits.
Cavuto asked Murray pointedly, “Does it bother you then, Bob, that George Shultz, Reagan-Nixon-Ford cabinet member, has no problem with it? Hank Paulson, former treasury secretary has no problem with it. They’re worried about climate change. They’re worried that if we don’t do something now to take out an insurance policy we’ll regret it.” Murray responded that he wasn’t an odd man out, saying, “I’m in the mainstream of the scientific facts.”
Murray also claimed the EPA regulations “bypass the states,” despite the fact that all states will be crafting their own plans to limit carbon.
He closed the segment with this summary of his position: “This global warming is a hoax. 20 years ago it was acid rain. Today it’s a hoax. To try to get control over the economy. To try to get control over this country, and the easiest way to do it is the electric power grid and the cost of it. That’s their agenda.”
Future Today
