After a strong counterattack, Big Coal makes a comeback

And then there are campaign contributions. As of early October, the mining industry, which is mostly coal, contributed more than $3 million to federal candidates, the great majority of it going to Republicans. The industry backed up its contributions with a major media blitz - the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, an industry front group, spent more than $16 million on ads this year touting the virtues of "clean" coal.

But coal flexes its political muscle in another way, too. Virtually all the big Rust Belt states - Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, not to mention Kentucky and West Virginia - are coal-heavy states, where the mining and burning of coal not only keeps the lights on, but contributes significant (although declining) revenues to local economies. These states have a lot of throw-weight in Congress, making it difficult to get enough votes to pass legislation that is seen as tough on coal. To make matters worse, politicians from Big Coal states are constantly compelled to demonstrate their loyalty to the industry, lest their campaign contributions stop and media attacks begin. Witness West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin, who understands very well the problems coal has wrought on his state, yet who vigorously defended mountaintop removal mining in his Senate campaign and shot a bullet through the cap-and-trade bill in one of his TV ads.

There is also a third way that coal exerts political influence, and that is through the historic connection between coal and progress. Environmentalists do not like to admit it, but we really do owe a large debt of gratitude to the coal industry. Coal was the engine of the Industrial Revolution, and without the power generated from coal, modern life as we know it today would be impossible to imagine. In the past, it really was true that one measure of progress was how much coal you mined and burned.

Of course, that connection is no longer valid today. In fact, the opposite is true: Mining and burning coal is a sign of a world that has not yet made the leap into the 21st century. But a sentimental attachment to coal remains, especially in places like West Virginia (the state flag has a coal miner on it), where coal mining is not just a job, but a way of life. To many people, coal is a symbol of simpler times, before anyone worried about jobs moving to China or the collapse of subprime mortgage loans. The coal industry understands these cultural connections very well and exploits them at every opportunity - the real point of all those wholesome "clean coal" ads that blanketed the airwaves this year is to remind viewers that coal is as American as mom and apple pie. Only a socialist - are you listening, Mr. President? - would be against it.

In the fight against coal, environmentalists and clean energy activists have yet to figure out a way to counter the industry's overwhelming political advantages. They have made great progress, for example, in highlighting the ravages of mountaintop removal mining, but legislation to curb that destructive practice is unlikely to gain momentum anytime soon. And of course the prospects for legislation that will put a price on CO2 pollution, is, for the foreseeable future, nonexistent. In fact, House Republican leaders have made it clear that one of their top priorities in the new Congress is to strip the federal Environmental Protection Agency of its authority to regulate CO2 as a pollutant.

"This is a get-real moment," says Becky Tarbotton, acting director of the Rainforest Action Network. There is talk among environmental activists of public demonstrations and large-scale civil disobedience actions against coal, and much hand-wringing about how to link people who care about the coal fields of Appalachia with people who care about the rapidly melting Arctic. "For us, the message from the election is that politicians clearly didn't feel the outrage," Tarbotton says. "We need boots on the ground. We need to build a broad social movement."

In the long run, of course, the coal industry is doomed. No amount of lobbying or political power can save them from the fact that coal is on the wrong side of the innovation curve - it is a 19th century fuel that has thrown itself into the 21st century with sheer political muscle. Cheaper, cleaner ways to generate electricity are on the way. And every coal industry executive I've ever talked to knows that. "This is a short-term game," the CEO of one coal company told me not long ago. The trouble is, for the health of our economy, as well as the planet, it's not short enough.