Trump advisor Cohn: coal doesnt make that much sense anymore.
Whether or not the United States will remain in the historic Paris climate agreement is a major question surrounding President Donald Trump’s trip to Italy for the G7 Summit. Trump’s top economic adviser, Gary Cohn, was asked about the decision aboard Air Force One on Thursday, and had some surprising answers.
Cohn told reporters that coal doesn’t “make that much sense anymore,” but that pushing renewables could make America “a manufacturing powerhouse.” The words seem off-message from a White House that has promised repeatedly to bring back coal jobs and just proposed massive cuts to federal investment in clean energy.
Cohn told the press that Trump would achieve fast economic growth while preserving the environment at the same time. “We’re not going to pollute the air to do that. We’re not going to be rampant polluters,” he said.
He then explained that achievement was made possible as a result of the country’s changing energy mix. “Coal doesn’t even make that much sense anymore as a feedstock,” Cohn said, whereas natural gas, of which we’ve become an “abundant producer,” is “such a cleaner fuel.”
Trump famously campaigned on restoring coal jobs, but the economic reality makes that a futile effort because the economics of coal no longer make sense and most of the jobs were lost years ago to productivity gains and machinery.
https://thinkprogress.org/top-trump-economic-adviser-coal-doesnt-even-make-that-much-sense-anymore-496d84f90ed2
