Edwards Not Afraid to Say What’s Unpopular

Noneed4thneed liveblogged John Edwards’s Marshalltown campaign stop today, and he relays a particularly interesting tidbit (emphasis added):

The first question asks if he would require oil companies to invest their large profits in building refineries.

Edwards says one long term solution is to cap carbon emissions (receives applause). He would auction off these caps, which would raise billions of dollars and then invest in renewables and build the infrastructure. He says Americans will need to conserve and uses the line Americans need to be patriotic about something other than war. He says we need to use coal sequestration technology and not build anymore coal plants until this technology is available. This was surprising to hear since there is a $1 billion coal-fired powered plant proposed to be built in Marshalltown.

It sounds like Edwards knew of the proposed plant before he said what he said. So why did he say it?

I don’t know, but one possibility is that he is trying to draw more attention to Barack Obama’s apparent quasi-flip-flop on coal power. Watch Common Iowan for more.

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