Jul 2, 2016 2 min read

Neal Roth’s letter in the June 12 Observer-Reporter cited an opinion by Charles McConnell, a former assistant secretary in the Department of Energy, to justify opposition to the Clean Power Plan. He described McConnell as someone who believes in climate change and mankind’s role in it, implying that McConnell’s opinion is unbiased.

In a U.S. Energy Association report, McConnell is described as a longtime energy industry executive, and the government position he held was as the assistant secretary for fossil energy. McConnell’s department was described as “the government’s lead office for coal, natural gas and oil exploration and development.” I don’t see it as a reach to conclude that any opinion McConnell might have on this subject is highly biased.

Since Roth cites McConnell’s acceptance of climate-change science, I assume he recognizes that problems and dangers looming. He provides statistics that illustrate minimal impact on the Clean Power Plan, rising temperatures and oceans, but minimal positive impact looks good next to the situation worsening. If Roth is correct about this, wouldn’t logic dictate that more be done? In what world does it make sense for “the greatest country in history” to say that we have a problem and will try to fix it, but our fix doesn’t do enough, and let’s not only do nothing, let’s double down on the activity that’s creating – or at least contributing heavily to – the problem?

You can’t heal a wound until you stop the bleeding. The Clean Power Plan stops the bleeding. Healing in this and other areas won’t happen until something is done to weaken the power of corporate lobbying over our government.

Don DeAngelis

Canonsburg