By Doug MacEachern
The Arizona Republic
The debate over “fixing” or closing the Navajo Generating Station near Page begins and ends by missing something obvious.
Whatever the resolution, the people for whom the 2,250-megawatt power plant is named get shafted.
Without shorting the very real and noble goal of maintaining the pristine nature of the Grand Canyon, including the air around it, the debate about haze over the canyon is a local issue in service of a much bigger Obama administration mission. It is a means to an end. And that end is shuttering coal-fired power plants in the U.S.
Of all Barack Obama’s campaign promises in 2008, few are being fulfilled as aggressively as his assertion to the San Francisco Chronicle editorial board that energy companies can go ahead and build coal-fired power plants if they like, but doing so “will bankrupt them.”
