Two Months to Go: Why I Haven't yet Made a Choice for Obama

With two months to go before the election, Yahoo! News asked a handful of undecided voters how they're leaning in the presidential race. Here's a perspective from one voter.

FIRST PERSON | When I left rural western Colorado this summer -- the place where I spent more than half of my 40 years of life -- the town in my rearview mirror wasn't doing well. When people talk about the abundance of America's energy sources, Colorado was surely what they had in mind. My friends and neighbors there were waiting for the environmental lawsuits to end so that a uranium mill could be built and mining there could begin again. Most of the nearby oil rigs left a few years ago in the face of new state regulations. In the meantime, coal was the only thing keeping that little town alive.

Understand this: Survival was always a precarious thing in my hometown, as it is in any place that relies perhaps too much on the boom and bust of the energy industry. But when the EPA declares war on an industry that, through a mine and a power plant, provides nearly every new dollar flowing into a place, "precarious" doesn't even begin to cover it.

Now, two months from the election, I am in Northern California, writing about energy and still trying to decide who to vote for. As an independent voter, I find myself to the right on some issues and to the left on others. I am tired of the Republican Party's stance on most social issues to the point that I'm repulsed by it. I am leaning toward Obama.

Social issues aside, though, I have looked at both candidate's energy policies. And I've been watching Obama's demonstration of an "all-of-the-above" policy, which The Atlantic refers to as the Democrats' least credible idea. To be sure, each week, the Obama Administration, via the Department of Energy, announces government investment in new, innovative energy resources. Methane hydrates. Concentrating solar power systems. Everything, it would seem, except coal.

But, according to the National Mining Association, in 2011, an average of 86,195 people were working at American coal mines each day. Further, the NMA reports, coal generates nearly half the electricity in the United States. Ninety percent of the coal mined each year is used for domestic electricity. It is available in 38 states and makes up 94 percent of the U.S. fossil energy reserve.

It seems like, rather than declaring war on it, the administration should be investing -- as it is in other forms of energy -- into making it cleaner-burning. It would be in the nation's interest to hang onto coal and improve it. I've seen a town dying slowly from overregulation. For that reason, I am not ready to simply declare my support for Obama.

Susan Graybeal, 40, is a former newspaper reporter who writes about energy issues from Northern California.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/two-months-why-havent-yet-made-choice-obama-153500989.html

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