Anyone here live in "coal country"?

Palin Attacks Obama on Coal Production
Nick Timiraos reports from Marietta, Ohio, on the presidential race.

Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin unleashed a new volley against Barack Obama on a four-city tour of Ohio on Sunday by touting newly released audio comments made by the Democratic presidential candidate promising to restrict the construction of new coal-fired power plants in the U.S.

The issue is particularly sensitive in coal-rich Ohio, West Virginia, and Colorado. Obama made the comments to the San Francisco Chronicle in January, which were posted on YouTube over the weekend.

Obama said that under his proposal to cap greenhouse gases, energy suppliers would get incentives to develop technologies to reduce pollution and to use cleaner sources of power. “So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can,” Obama said. “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.”

Palin told supporters to listen to the audiotape. “You’re going to hear Sen. Obama talk about bankrupting the coal industry,” she said. The Alaska governor also pointed to comments that Democratic vice-presidential candidate Joe Biden made to an environmental activist, promising no more coal-fired power plants in America. Biden was videotaped, likely without his knowledge.

“In an Obama-Biden administration, there would be no use for coal at all, from Wyoming to Colorado, to West Virginia and Ohio,” Palin said.

The Obama campaign scrambled after Biden made his comments in September, clarifying that Obama remained committed to exploring the as-yet-undeveloped clean-coal technology in order to produce cleaner-burning coal-fired power plants.