Did Carla Marinucci cover up Obama's "bankrupt" coal plants plan?

The San Francisco Chronicle conducted an interview with Barack Obama on January 17, 2008 in which he said things relating to his energy policy and his plan to bankrupt coal plants under certain conditions. What he said may or may not be as shocking as some would have you believe; I don't know anything about the topic.

What I do know is that (h/t Newsbusters), the summary of the talk from Carla Marinucci of the SF Chronicle contains nothing about his energy-related discussions. Was that a cover-up or something else? I'll let the reader decide, but note that she's misled in Obama's favor before; see the last link.

Comments

The people that are wound up about what Obama said obviously do not understand the idea of cap and trade systems. Such a system would make it near impossible to expand coal beyond the current levels (about half of electricity). It would not close down existing power plants or bankrupt the entire coal industry. Cap and trade systems were devised by (mainstream and conservative) economists who think it would be better to use economic forces and markets to gradually bring about changes, rather than use command and control government regulations. In a coal cap and trade system, existing users (power plants and industry) would be given coal use credits based on how much they are using now. Those credits could be sold or transferred. If someone absolutely had to use coal for a new power use, they would have to go out and obtain credits from someone else that had them. If a coal plant somewhere converted to something that was carbon free (nuclear, wind, solar, geothermal, etc), then they would be in a position to sell the credits that they had been using for the coal plant. Selling them would help fund the conversion to less polluting sources of energy. These type of last minute alarmist warnings are rather boring - especially when they are based on distortions. Obama would cap coal use at current levels, not close down the entire industry.