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Further, the United States is moving ahead in the development of clean coal technology. There are vast coal reserves in our country, and when it is burned cleanly, coal can provide a resource to supply a large amount of our energy requirements.

The coal industry has helped fuel this Nation for 150 years, and coal can be used to heat our homes, power our economy, and protect our Nation for at least another 150 years if we continue to use it.

Coal is a big deal here in Wyoming.

Even the biggest coal boosters have long admitted that coal is a dying industry - the fight has always been over how fast and how hard the industry will fall.

Coal is cheap, but up to what extent are we going to allow coal plants to operate?

The end of coal in Appalachia doesn't mean that America is running out of coal (there's plenty left in Wyoming). But it should end the fantasy that coal can be an engine of job creation - the big open pit mines in Wyoming employ a tiny fraction of the number of people in an underground mine in Appalachia.

I'd like to say that right now, in the last few years, the Democrats have been closer - have been more pro-environment. The coal industry is pretty well entrenched in the Republican Party and that's one of the things that we need to phase out.

And we have abundant natural energy resources in the country. We haven't been taking adequate advantage of them, and we can burn coal in a clean way; we could improve the grid.

I think we'll still be operating coal in 2030. Whether we will be in 2040, I think, is a question, or in 2050.

We don't want to leave the coal in the ground, and that necessarily is going to involve better technology with regard to clean uses of coal.