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But Big Oil and Big Coal have always been as skilled at propaganda as they are at mining and drilling. Like the tobacco industry before them, their success depends on keeping Americans stupid.

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 is an even larger part of the Australian economy than it is of the American, and it has an enormous amount of political power.

Coal is absolutely critical to our nation's economic health and global competitiveness.

Here in Indiana and in many states throughout the union, we rely on coal to power our homes and provide good-paying middle class jobs - like the one my family relied on when I was a kid. The coal mine helped put food on our table and helped me pursue an education and realize the American Dream.

Nowhere has the political power of coal been more obvious than in presidential campaigns.

We have been blessed in many respects with the explosion of the development of shale gas resources here in North America. It's both U.S. and in Canada.

All Americans are dependent for their energy on the Arabian peninsula.

If America is addicted to foreign money and foreign oil, then China is addicted to foreign supplies of just about every commodity known to man - save highly polluting coal.