On Monday, EPA Director Scott Pruitt announced that he would be putting an end to the Obama-era policy known and the Clean Power Plan. The plan put stiff regulations on new and existing coal-fired power plants which resulted in many being closed down, miners to be let go, energy bills to skyrocket, and put greater strain on the power grid. All in the name of so-called green energy. CBS Evening News was put off by the EPA’s reversal and turned to China for their example for how the U.S. should operate.
“The head of the Environmental Protection Agency declared today the war on coal is over,” announced fill-in Anchor Elaine Quijano. “Scott Pruitt told an audience in Kentucky he plans to repeal an Obama-era rule that limits carbon emissions from power plants that burn coal. China, on the other hand, is doing the opposite.”
CBS Correspondent Ben Tracy was in China touring the vast solar power plants known as “solar farms” there:
On a farm in northern China, they are planting a new crop. Nearly 200,000 solar panels in the heart of coal country. In the south, China just flipped a switch on the world's largest floating solar installation. Built on top of a lake created by an abandoned coal mine.
“Projects like these help China double its solar capacity last year. It is now twice as big as the U.S. Capacity,” he touted. Nearly half of all the new solar installations in the world are now happening here in China.”
Tracy cited the radical leftist organization Greenpeace and pushed their dubious claim about how fast China was constructing their solar farms. “And they're doing it quickly. Greenpeace says they are installing the equivalent of a soccer field full of solar powers every hour of every day.”
As he wrapped up his report, Tracy championed China for making it their “government’s mission” to create more green energy:
It's spending hundreds of billions of dollars to subsidize renewable energy as China tries to wean itself off coal, still its dominant power source. And the reason for its notoriously toxic air. But China now produces two-thirds of the world's solar panels and has become a major competitor for the U.S. solar industry which employs a quarter million American workers.
Tracy failed to mention that when President Obama tried to subsidize the green power industry in the United States billions in investments were a bust.
In 2015, The Washington Times wrote the failed investments left taxpayers $2.2 billion in the hole. “Nearly $1 billion in loans have already defaulted under the Energy Department program,” they reported at the time. “Which included the infamous Solyndra stimulus project and dozens of other green technology programs the Obama administration has approved, totaling nearly about $30 billion in taxpayer backing, the Government Accountability Office reported in its audit.”
What also went unreported by Tracy was the fact that the International Trade Commission found in late September that the import of cheap solar panels was hurting U.S. panel makers. The Commission was putting together their recommendations for President Trump and he was expected to come down on the side of help U.S. solar panel manufactures.
Transcript below:
CBS Evening News
October 9, 2017
6:37:53 PM EasternELAINE QUIJANO: The head of the Environmental Protection Agency declared today the war on coal is over. Scott Pruitt told an audience in Kentucky he plans to repeal an Obama-era rule that limits carbon emissions from power plants that burn coal. China, on the other hand, is doing the opposite. Ben Tracy reports coal is on the way out, solar power is coming in.
[Cuts to video]
BEN TRACY: On a farm in northern China, they are planting a new crop. Nearly 200,000 solar panels in the heart of coal country. In the south, China just flipped a switch on the world's largest floating solar installation. Built on top of a lake created by an abandoned coal mine. Projects like these help China double its solar capacity last year. It is now twice as big as the U.S. Capacity.
Nearly half of all the new solar installations in the world are now happening here in China. And they're doing it quickly. Greenpeace says they are installing the equivalent of a soccer field full of solar powers every hour of every day.
MAGGIE QIU: We have 28 solar power plants in operation in China. And three more are under construction.
TRACY: Maggie Qiu is executive president of Panda Green Energy. It has installed enough solar panels to power more than 40 million homes. Why are you building so many solar farms?
QIU: We intend to bring the better future to our next generation by using such clean energy, reducing the air pollution. That is the company’s mission.
TRACY: It's also the government's mission. It's spending hundreds of billions of dollars to subsidize renewable energy as China tries to wean itself off coal, still its dominant power source. And the reason for its notoriously toxic air. But China now produces two-thirds of the world's solar panels and has become a major competitor for the U.S. solar industry which employs a quarter million American workers. Ben Tracy, CBS News, Datong, China.
