The author of the editorial, “Will the northwest economy be a casualty of the war on coal,” is President of the Washington Association of Businesses (WAB), an organization that takes business interests far out into right field.    
But I’ll take the bait, and agree with Mr. Brunell’s description of the coal train proposal, and the so called Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) review processes, of which I whole-heartedly approve.   
The environment, as with coal deposits, may be vast, but neither is sustainable under constant pressure. The major difference between these two resources is that if we run out of coal we can adapt, but if we exhaust the natural environment, we die. Okay, that was fun, but shipping billions of tons of coal half-way round the world so another country can increase global pollution is not.
And the problem goes much deeper: when you discourage energy innovation by encouraging the burning of fossil fuels you harm, not only the present, but the future of clean energy. I can’t imagine a rational thinking person would want to do that.    
I have to believe those who oppose putting the coal train through a global environmental impact review, or encourage world dependence on fossil fuels, do so out of ignorance.
I have to believe that. Because the only alternative is that they just don’t care.     

Tom Davis
Shelton
 

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