WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama’s top energy and environmental officials say there is a future for coal, despite a pending regulation aimed at limiting global warming pollution from new power plants that Republicans and the coal industry say will doom the fuel source.
Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz and EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy, questioned at a House hearing Wednesday, both said coal-fired power would continue. Coal makes up about 40 percent of U.S. electricity.
A revised proposal due Friday would set the first-ever limits on carbon dioxide, the chief greenhouse gas, from new power plants. The industry and Republicans have said the rule would mean no new coal plants would be built in this country.
That’s because it would require expensive technology to capture some carbon pollution and bury it underground.
