John McCain’s campaign has jumped on recent comments made by Barack Obama’s running mate to paint the Democrats as out of touch with Colorado voters.
Joe Biden was caught on tape at an event in Ohio last week telling a woman that he and Obama don’t support building “clean coal” plants in the United States — even though Obama is on record as supporting it.
“We’re not supporting clean coal,” said Biden, who is supposed to be reaching out to working-class voters in places like Pennsylvania. “Guess what — China’s building two every week. Two dirty coal plants. And it’s polluting the United States. It’s causing people to die.”
“This is one more example of how the Obama-Biden ticket is out of touch and out of step with Western values and the Western economy,” said Tom Kise, spokesman for the McCain campaign.
Biden’s camp tried to backpedal, saying Biden was attempting to make the point that China’s technology is outdated and the U.S. should lead by developing better clean-coal methods.
“The fact that they backtracked on the statement shows they say one thing on the East Coast and another thing entirely when they come to Colorado,” Kise said.
Colorado produces 36 million short tons of coal per year, ranking it seventh in the country. About 70 percent of the state’s electricity is generated by coal, according to the federal Energy Information Administration. Wyoming is the country’s leading producer of coal, and Montana is the fourth-biggest producer.
David Wade, spokesman for the Obama-Biden campaign, responded to charges from the McCain campaign in a statement.
“Last year, Senator Obama passed a bipartisan amendment to triple federal funding towards clean coal. In the White House, they will continue that commitment,” he said.
Karen Crummy: 303-954-1594 or kcrummy@denverpost.com
