A big political story to emerge this weekend was President-elect Obama’s intention of repealing many of President Bush’s executive orders. John Podesta appeared the FoxNews Sunday show, test-marketing the theme to gauge the response from constitutencies. AP summary, “Obama plans review of Bush executive orders“:

WASHINGTON — President-elect Barack Obama plans an “across-the board” review of President George W. Bush’s executive orders, with an eye toward making his own quick imprint on important matters, and will swiftly put in place a “diverse,” bipartisan team of Cabinet members and aides, key advisers said Sunday.

“There’s a lot that the president can do using his executive authority, without waiting for congressional action,” said John Podesta, who is coordinating Obama’s transition planning. “And I think we’ll see the president do that to try to restore … a sense that the country is working on behalf of the common good.”

Obama’s review of his predecessor’s executive orders will range from a ban that Bush placed on federal funding for research using new lines of embryonic stem cells to an expected easing of oil and gas drilling limits in sensitive Western lands that the Bush administration could seek in its final month.

Utah. It’s always Utah. We remember the hullabaloo over President Clinton’s unilateral declaration in 1996 of Grande Staircase of the Escalante National Monument in Utah, locking up 1.7 million acres of land without congressional action, land that holds a trillion dollars worth of clean coal.

 As Investor’s Business Daily recalled in an editorial earlier this year:

The Utah reserve contains a kind of low-sulfur, low-ash and therefore low-polluting coal that can be found in only a couple of places in the world. It burns so cleanly that it meets the requirements of the Clean Air Act without additional technology.

“The mother of all land grabs,” Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said at the time. He has called what was designated as the Grande Staircase of the Escalante National Monument the “Saudi Arabia of coal.”

President Clinton’s move was a clear statement of policy that the Clinton Administration was not serious about reducing U.S. reliance on foreign energy and that “energy security” was anything but a priority. It’s useful historical reminder for the upcoming energy debates.

There are few things less appealing than a bullying, self-righteous newspaper editor, scolding politicians  and the public. Case in point: Phil Bronstein, editor at large at the San Francisco Chronicle, responding to Gov. Sarah Palin and various commentators criticizing the paper for what should have been a big story, Senator Barack Obama’s anti-coal pronouncements.

Bronstein, “My role in the Obama interview cover-up“:

It’s hard to pack in righteous indignation, outrage and a big 15 minutes of fame all at one time.

That’s pretty much where we are here at the Chronicle after Governor Palin’s claims over the weekend that we suppressed comments about the coal industry by Barack Obama at a January ed board meeting right here in SF. If you know our editorial page editor John Diaz, you know that making him say “hell” in a story means he’s pretty livid over the charge.

Me? My feeling is that hinky things happen in a bar at closing time. Let’s always set the record straight whenever possible. But are we really shocked that politicians on all sides twist things a to suit their purposes? You must be as stunned as I am.

The reality is this: the interview wasn’t squirreled down some digital hole, as the Governor claims (”the notion of a “tape” itself is pretty Watergate-era dated). If someone “found it”, digging for anything to help in the coal states of Ohio and Pennsylvania, I guess we didn’t hide it. It was available in audio and video form shortly after it happened and remains on SFGate to this day. Links to both forms of the interview appeared in the print Chronicle on a number of occasions. If the McCain campaign wanted to use this, what took them so long?

Is that really the journalistic standard you want to set, Bronstein? Hey, we posted the recording, YOU look for the news.

Seems antithetical to the idea that journalists have value in exercising news judgment, skills of interpretation, the ability to provide context, and perhaps a small gift of good writing. “Hell, we posted it, our obligation is complete.” Is that it?

As said below, it should come as no surprise that the San Francisco Chronicle’s team of editors and reporters missed the news in their January interview with Senator Barack Obama, that is, his clear, unambiguous support for policies to prevent utilities from building new coal-fired power plants because the costs would “bankrupt” them. In a cocooned newsroom full of the like-minded in the one-party city of San Francisco, statements about bankrupting coal seem like unobjectionable observations of fact. We should bankrupt coal? Absolutely, it’s dirty. And we can replace it with wind and solar energy and conservation and wishes and hopes and dreams of a brighter tomorrow.

Bronstein seems to think his journalistic value was proved when Senator Obama criticized him for being cynical, and he throws in a gratuitous “wink wink” reference to his ex, Sharon Stone. But who cares what a candidate thinks of you (or your ex)? The important thing is the story, and you missed it, as you yourself admit.

Still, I didn’t jump out of my seat when Senator Obama made his comments about the coal industry. It didn’t lead our story and wasn’t in the leadline. Maybe I wasn’t paying enough attention. Or maybe, as John Diaz notes, the statements were a little more nuanced than Governor Palin found useful in her rally speech.

Nuanced?

Spreading around the conservative blogosphere today is the tape and transcript of a conversation Senator Barack Obama had with the San Francisco Chronicle on January 17, 2008. From Newsbusters.org (which does the bolding):

What I’ve said is that we would put a cap and trade system in place that is as aggressive, if not more aggressive, than anybody else’s out there.

I was the first to call for a 100% auction on the cap and trade system, which means that every unit of carbon or greenhouse gases emitted would be charged to the polluter. That will create a market in which whatever technologies are out there that are being presented, whatever power plants that are being built, that they would have to meet the rigors of that market and the ratcheted down caps that are being placed, imposed every year.

So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can; it’s just that it will bankrupt them because they’re going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that’s being emitted.

That will also generate billions of dollars that we can invest in solar, wind, biodiesel and other alternative energy approaches.

The only thing I’ve said with respect to coal, I haven’t been some coal booster. What I have said is that for us to take coal off the table as a (sic) ideological matter as opposed to saying if technology allows us to use coal in a clean way, we should pursue it.

So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can.

It’s just that it will bankrupt them.

Newsbusters notes that the Chronicle reporter and editors did not deem the Senator’s remarks worth a story in January. Now, everyone makes mistakes, and sometimes media outlets simply miss a story.  We can see how you might overlook a policy statement to the effect that coal, which provides about half of U.S. electricity, will have no role in the economic country’s future.

But after Sen. Biden’s comments condemning clean coal, wouldn’t Senator Obama’s remarks have regained news value?

Huh. Just really hard to understand the failure to report this.

UPDATE: A San Francisco Chronicle headline, October 21: “Candidates’ energy plans like peas in a pod”

Well, that’s just not true, is it? As the Chronicle’s own interviews aptly demonstrate.

This post with video by the Politico’s Ben Smith on Senator Biden’s abjuration of coal is getting widespread play among the bloggers, chatterers and the commentariat.

Some great rope line video from Joe Biden’s recent Ohio swing, where he was asked by an anti-pollution campaigner about clean coal — a controversial approach in Democratic circles for which Obama has voiced support, particularly during the Kentucky primary.

Biden’s apparent answer: He supports clean coal for China, but not for the United States.

“No coal plants here in America,” he said. “Build them, if they’re going to build them, over there. Make them clean.”

“We’re not supporting clean coal,” he said of himself and Obama. They do, on paper, support clean coal.

Even disagreeing (strenuously) with Senator Biden on coal as a matter of policy, we must concede that his position is not unheard of. It’s shared by quite a few leading environmentalist opponents of energy development:

• “There’s no such thing as clean coal” — Bruce Nilles, who directs the Sierra Club’s National Coal Campaign. (Columbus Dispatch, Jan. 11, 2008.)
• “There’s no such thing as clean coal” — Robert Kennedy Jr. “‘Coal is dirty and destructive in every aspect of its production and burning.” (Real News Network, Aug. 28, 2008.)
• “There’s no such thing as clean coal” — Ilan Levin, legal counsel for the Environmental Integrity Project (EIP) in Austin, Texas (The New Scientist, Aug. 3, 2007.)

Charleston Gazette, article: “At West Virginia resort, Bush praises coal power“:

WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS, W.Va. - President George W. Bush touted coal during a speech at The Greenbrier hotel on Thursday, but didn’t stop there, as he promoted virtually every means of domestic power production as a pathway to energy independence.

“There is no more reliable source of electricity than coal,” Bush told the crowd of about 450 people gathered for the West Virginia Coal Association’s annual meeting.

“Coal is affordable. Coal is available right here. And coal provides jobs,” he said.

Charleston Daily Mail, editorial: “Bush is right about coal power“:

PRESIDENT Bush’s address on Thursday to the West Virginia Coal Association showed that for an oil man from Texas, he understands the state and the product it is most known for.

Unlike Democratic Senate Leader Harry Reid, Bush knows that coal is not making America sick.

Rather, the electricity that coal provides makes the American economy healthy and strong.

“One of the challenges is energy prices,” Bush said. “I’m a big believer in technology and innovation. Technology can change basic industry to keep us competitive and economically viable in the future.

“In order for this country to be economically competitive, we need to make sure we have a reliable supply of electricity. There is no more reliable source of electricity than coal. Coal is affordable and coal is available right here in the United States of America. Coal allows us to keep our prices reasonable, and it provides jobs.”

Bush is most correct. Coal not only provides jobs in the coalfields, but the cheap electricity it produces makes many other industries possible.

Transcript of remarks.

President Bush addressed the West Virginia Coal Association today. Transcript of his 30-minute remarks, which highlighted clean-coal technology:

This year — I mean, since we’ve been in office we’ve spent $2.5 billion on clean coal research. Why? Because it’s a good investment to make sure that an abundant supply of energy is available and is in use for a long time coming. That’s why we’re doing it.

This year alone we’ve requested nearly $650 million in the budget for advanced coal research. It’s the largest such request in 25 years. The funding is supported — is supporting the development of technology to capture carbon dioxide emissions that come from coal. This is something the industry wants the government to do. We want us to be on the leading edge of change. We want to be able to capture CO2. These advances obviously are going to make coal more environmentally friendly. It’ll make it easier for people to say, let’s use this abundant resource.

Today my administration announced $36 million for new carbon capture projects. In other words, it’s more than just research. We’re now beginning to get into the implementation stage of promising new technologies. And eventually the technology may allow us to prevent 90 percent of coal’s carbon emissions from being released into the environment.

Department of Energy news release.

Along with politically topical remarks about opening the OCS to energy development, the President also spent some time promoting nuclear power, including the government-industry partnership for more baseload power generation, Nuclear Power 2010.  A comprehensive approach, we like to say …