There's actually good reasons to want coal use trimmed and then shut down. Coal is the worst fuel from the point of view of global warming. With fracking, we can get enough natural gas to run our generators without using coal and without its costing any more. Same energy, half the CO2. We're already taking some hits from the climate change that has happened so far. At the rate the world is burning coal (and other fossil fuels) we're on track to make the problem twice as bad as it is now in just another 20 years. We're heading off a cliff and everybody on the right is yelling "faster". The first job of a true conservative is to conserve and defend the future. Not close it off. The physical basis for farming is a suitable climate.