(These comments were submitted by Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., Co-Founder of the Congressional Coal Caucus.)

Whether providing cheap gas so companies don’t have to pass their costs onto consumers, or keeping home utility prices low allowing Americans to spend money on other things, or employing millions of workers to develop resources found right here in America, the energy industry quite literally powers the American economy.

The fossil fuel industry—natural gas, coal, and oil—directly or indirectly employs millions of Americans. It is the backbone of my state’s economy, employing thousands of hardworking West Virginians, while providing an important source of tax revenue for local and state governments.

Despite its rich potential for expansion and job creation, this Administration has made every effort to dismantle the fossil fuel industry through burdensome and job-crushing regulations while failing to offer a viable alternative to meet our nation’s energy needs.

I have always fought for an all-of-the-above energy solution that balances our nation’s expanding energy needs with our desire for environmental conservation. I have supported investing in technologies to make the use of coal cleaner, such as carbon sequestration and use of clean coal-to-liquids technology that would have the added benefit of making us less dependent on foreign sources of energy. I have fought for these clean coal technologies while also supporting investments in renewable resources such as wind and solar.

The biggest concern I hear from energy producers in West Virginia is the veil of uncertainty hanging over them as this Administration interprets and implements a medley of rules and regulations.

For example, earlier this year, the EPA retroactively vetoed a previously approved Clean Water Act permit for Arch Coal’s Spruce Mine. This came as quite a surprise to our miners since the EPA had previously okayed the same permit only a few short years before.

The concern caused by reaching back to revoke rippled throughout Appalachia. Why would a company invest millions of dollars into a new project only to have the project shut down by bureaucrats in Washington a short-time later? As we speak, the EPA is sitting on hundreds of permits filed by coal operators, holding up investment and job creation.

Now, natural gas operators worry they’ll be the next ones targeted by the EPA’s ambiguous rules and regulations.

With 9.2% unemployment, we can ill afford to cripple the fossil fuel industry in the name of “clean energy.” I am pleased that my measure to mandate that the EPA consider jobs and economic impacts in addition to environmental impact passed the House of Representatives with bipartisan support.

As with most things, balance is key. Coal, our nation’s most abundant and cheapest resources, will always play a role in our energy portfolio. Burning it cleaner and more efficiently is an added, welcomed bonus and I hope we will see much more innovation in these new technologies.

(These comments were submitted by Jacqueline Patterson, environmental and climate director for NAACP.)

Not only is it possible to wean ourselves, as a nation, off of coal, it is imperative that we aggressively identify pathways to do so by promoting waste reduction and re-use, advancing energy efficiency, and transitioning to clean energy.

Every day we see excessive waste production and energy usage. We all pay the price, as the majority of Americans breathe air every day that violates air pollution standards. It is all directly or indirectly related to our excessive need for energy and our overreliance on harmful forms of energy, namely fossil fuel-based energy. Whether it is smog from our extensive usage motor vehicles; emissions from paper mills, cement kilns, biomass incinerators, and other industrial sources; or pollution from oil refineries and coal-fired power plants -- pervasive overconsumption, lack of energy efficiency, and predominant usage of fossil fuels combine to make our air increasingly unsustainable.

Coal remains the largest single source of electricity that powers our overconsumption patterns. With over 400 coal-fired power plants nationwide, coal is the source of copious amounts of multiple harmful toxins being emitted into the atmosphere all of which have been tied to health conditions including asthma, lung cancer, birth defects, Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, attention deficit disorder, and other illnesses. Additionally, coal burning is one of the largest contributors to greenhouses gases which drive climate change, resulting in lessened availability of affordable nutritious foods, displacement of communities due to rising sea levels, and increase in the frequency and severity of extreme weather events like we have seen in Joplin, Birmingham, and elsewhere.

Some in our nation pay a much higher price for these effects than others – namely children, the aging population, people with special health needs, communities of color, and low-income communities. In the case of African American communities, 71% of African Americans live in counties in violation of air pollution standards and 68% of African Americans live within a 30-mile radius of a coal fired power plant. Meanwhile, African Americans experience high rates of respiratory illnesses as they are three times as likely as white Americans to visit the ER and be hospitalized for asthma attacks; two times more likely to die of asthma attacks; and are more likely to develop lung cancer. Poor birth outcomes are also prevalent among African American families with infant mortality rates being 2.4 times the rate of white Americans. Studies have tied poor health outcomes to harmful emissions from coal fired power plants, such as the Harvard School of Public Health study on the impact of the Fisk and Crawford plants in Chicago. It is at the very least apparent that these plants contribute to the dangerous and unhealthy pollution that African American communities and many others ingest.

We can do this! People on the local, state and national levels are already enacting the strategies that we need to achieve a transition from waste and harmful energy choices. The University of the District of Columbia decided to turn off their vending machines from 10pm to 6am, which saved a third of the significant energy use and over $1K in annual energy costs. The city of Washington DC instituted a five-cent bag tax that achieved an 80% reduction in the usage of plastic bags within months. The Pennsylvania Public Utilities Commission adopted net metering in 2008, which allows individual homeowners to sell excess energy back to the utility company at the going rate – and now many homeowners are taking advantage of solar paneling and other clean energy technologies. Finally, in an example of public-private partnership, Honeywell International has launched a contract with the Housing Authority of the City of Pittsburgh which is expected to save the city $3.2 million annually in utility costs by switching to geothermal systems as well as sealing buildings to reduce loss of hot and cold air and retrofitting lights and appliances with more efficient models.

When more of us embrace these economical practices, we can begin to wean off of coal-fired power plants and move toward a more sustainable planet. Therefore, we need a policy landscape that heavily supports waste reduction and re-use, energy efficiency, and clean energy. First, we must make clean energy affordable by ensuring that subsidies for renewable energy are on par with the high level of subsidization the fossil fuel industry receives. Second, we must heavily invest in research and demonstration projects on storage and transmission of solar and wind energy. Third, we must advance large-scale use of clean energy by enacting renewable portfolio standards in every state. Finally, to encourage everyone to do their part, we must support rebates and incentives for small-scale renewable energy usage in homes, churches, and businesses. This includes ensuring that every state has a net metering policy.

In the long run and the short run, the health and wellbeing of our communities and our planet depends on US leadership making the crucial transition to waste reduction, energy efficiency and clean energy, in policy and in practice.

America’s coal industry is facing significant challenges that threaten our country’s energy security and economic prosperity. Even worse, energy consumers – particularly already struggling low-income families – will be footing the bill.

The Environmental Protection Agency has launched an assault on coal, saddling coal-fired power plants with numerous and burdensome regulations that will ultimately require countless generation facilities to close their doors for good. These rules will not only affect the reliability of the energy grid, they will leave hundreds of thousands of hard-working Americans without jobs.

Of the EPA’s onslaught of rules, I am most troubled by proposed Utility MACT standards which have been met with much opposition at the local and national levels.

While its negative effect on the economy and consumers has been widely documented, the EOP Foundation recently released a paper discussing the impact of proposed Utility MACT standards on federal budget costs, estimating the rules will cost the government almost $3 billion dollars over 10 years in power costs and retrofits. The study also says the rules will cost the government $166 million a year in higher power costs from utilities, while paying $120 million annually to retrofit federally-owned electric generating units and boilers to comply with the EPA standards.

At a time when debt reduction and job growth are at the forefront of public debate, it seems counterproductive to implement rules that will add government costs and send more workers to the unemployment line.

But the EPA doesn’t stop with its Utility MACT rule. It recently moved to once again burden the energy industry with rules that will require massive electricity generation facility closures while offering states little to no opportunity for comment from those affected by the rule. The Cross State Air Pollution Rule, finalized on July 7, is another in a long line of troubling proposals whose consequences will have severe impacts on electricity prices, jobs and electric reliability. It will require states like Texas to reduce their sulfur emissions by 47 percent before the end of 2011. Conversely, the Clean Air Act established a 10 year window to cut sulfur emissions by only 30 percent. The impossible timelines imposed by this rule will force many coal based generators to shut down plants and eliminate even more jobs.

If America is to continue providing electricity consumers with the safe, affordable and reliable service that is expected, the EPA should reconsider implementing policies without taking into account the full effects on the energy grid. Sound energy policies should not only impose change, but should do so while allowing for greater periods for public comment and longer time windows for compliance. I’m encouraged that some lawmakers are getting the message. A Senate coalition led by Senator Susan Collins introduced a bill that would delay Utility MACT rules for at least 15 months and give industries at least five years to comply.

The energy industry is regularly making improvements to reduce its carbon footprint. As I stated in a recent piece, “EPA’s own statistics show that emission of SO2 fell 71 percent from 1980 to 2010, from a high of more than 17 million tons to just over 5 million tons. Emission of NOx fell almost as much, from a 1997 high of 6 million tons to just 2 million tons in 2010, for a total reduction of 66 percent during that nearly decade-and-a-half stretch. Looking at even more recent EPA figures, SO2 emission has been cut in half since 2005 and NOx has fallen by nearly as much at 45 percent!”

The EPA should recognize these improvements and reconsider rules that could restrain domestic energy, endanger jobs, and saddle consumers with higher power bills. Policymakers should not be moving to completely wean the country off of coal, but rather recognizing that “renewable” energies – such as wind and solar – work in tandem with the reliable “baseload” power coal provides to fulfill America’s growing energy needs.

(These comments were submitted by Mary Anne Hitt, Director of the Sierra Club Beyond Coal Campaign)

Coal is making our kids sick – it’s the #1 source of mercury pollution and a leading trigger of asthma attacks. In fact, coal pollution causes 13,000 asthma attacks a year, and 1in 10 kids in this country suffers from asthma.

I can’t look at my one-year-old daughter and believe that we should continue relying on coal for years to come. As my colleague Michael Brune wrote yesterday – The U.S. has to move beyond coal. (LINK)

That’s why I’m thrilled with today’s news: The Sierra Club just announced a partnership with Bloomberg Philanthropies that includes a $50 million commitment over four years to the Beyond Coal Campaign, which will fuel the Sierra Club’s effort to clean the air, phase out the coal era, and accelerate the transition to cleaner, cost-effective energy sources.

Michael Bloomberg sees our nation’s energy future as we do: “Ending coal power production is the right thing to do for our environment but it is also simple economics. And while it may seem to be an inexpensive energy source, the hidden costs are significant,” said Bloomberg.

“Coal is a self-inflicted public health risk, polluting the air we breathe, adding toxins to the water we drink and the leading cause of climate disruption.”

Beyond the public health issues of burning coal, mining and disposing of coal waste are also taking a huge toll on our health. Mountaintop removal coal mining destroys entire landscapes, watersheds, and communities. Then, once burned, the remaining toxic coal ash is stored in unlined ponds around the country, contaminating drinking water supplies.

Who wants their child to live with these risks when we can power our nation with clean energy?

Thankfully, the switch to clean energy is already starting to happen. Local communities are taking the lead and replacing coal with wind and solar power. San Antonio just announced it is retiring its coal plant and is now planning to build one of the largest solar projects in the country. In Denver, the Mayor and residents grew tired of the dirty air, put pressure on the local utility and got the coal plant retired. Colorado utility Xcel is now on target to meet that state’s clean energy goal – one of the most aggressive state standards in the country – a full eight years ahead of schedule.

The path to reduce costs and a cleaner environment is clean energy, and the donation from Bloomberg Philanthropies will accelerate this trend. ‘With clean solar and wind getting cheaper and newer technologies emerging, it doesn’t make sense to use an outdated 19^th century technology to make electricity,” Bloomberg said as he announced the partnership.

The Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign, powered by the additional resources of Bloomberg Philanthropies, will work to phase out the nation’s dirtiest coal plants by making sure current environmental laws are enforced, by helping local communities that oppose existing plants, and by encouraging and advancing the use of cleaner, healthier, more modern power.

This is the beginning of the end of the coal era. The nation's smartest business people are behind us. The cost of coal is rising, and the price of wind and solar is dropping. Studies show we can close down one-third of our coal plants in the next ten years, which will slash pollution and open new opportunities for clean energy growth.

Community by community, Americans are standing up and saying no to the industry that has been making our kids sick for too long. This is a fight we can win, and we're not waiting for Washington. Join us.

Thanks to reliable domestic supplies and relatively low costs, coal-fired power generation has dominated the electricity mix in the United States for many decades. Coal has contributed to U.S. industrial growth, and has maintained an important jobs base in rural economies. However, an honest look at this fuel source must also recognize that our country’s substantial reliance on coal-fired electric generation has come at a significant cost to the environment and human health. With alternative cost-effective power supply options available, now is the time to move to cleaner options and begin to wean ourselves off of our coal addiction.

Coal-fired power plants are a primary contributor to acid rain, smog, fine particle and toxic air pollution, and climate change. Burning coal for electricity generation also uses large amounts of water and creates toxic ash and sludge. In addition, mining coal through the practice of mountaintop removal has ruined rural landscapes and waters, and has damaged the health and well-being of residents in the surrounding communities. Many of these impacts of coal production and use are increasingly being regulated, helping to ensure that more of the real health and environmental costs of our coal reliance are incorporated into the price of coal-fired power production, raising the price above historic levels.

The U.S. now has cost-effective alternatives to coal generation due to the significant growth of natural gas supplies and renewable energy over the last decade. Recent innovations in technologies to access shale gas have dramatically increased the domestic supplies and reduced the cost of this cleaner energy resource, and more power generators are starting to ramp up use of their existing but underutilized natural gas-fired electric generation. Based purely on the shifting economics, natural gas use in the electricity sector has increased by more than 50 percent over the last decade, while coal use has decreased. The opportunity presented by shale gas in the Marcellus Shale and in other shale gas reserves around the country has the potential to create jobs in many of the same states that now rely on coal mining and generation, mitigating the economic impact for both workers and states. Further, state-level renewable portfolio standards and the federal production tax credit are driving large-scale construction of renewable power resources, including commercial scale wind and solar power. Growing investments in renewable energy will create new jobs in areas such as manufacturing and power line construction, again contributing to employment levels and economic growth.

While these shifts do not mean the imminent death knell of coal use in the U.S.—the most efficient coal-fired power generators will continue to supply power for decades—alternative energy sources are poised to assume a growing portion of coal’s market share. U.S. policy makers need to support this shift through strong regulations that address the health and environmental costs of using coal and support the role for renewable electricity in our energy portfolio. Using a combination of alternative power generation resources, we should strive to create an orderly shift away from coal-fired power, just as we did with high sulfur coal in the 1990s with the Acid Rain law.

The United States must stop burning coal. What's more, we must stop much sooner than a few vested interests would like and far more quickly than many Americans may believe possible. If we don't, the carbon pollution from coal-fired power plants will make it impossible to stabilize the climate.

During the past decade, the Sierra Club has invested significant resources in doing something about this, and we've succeeded in stopping the development of more than 150 proposed coal-fired power plants. Tomorrow, we'll have a major announcement about how our campaign to stop coal will become even more effective.

Why are we so determined? Because of the harm that burning coal does to our communities, to our environment, and to our health.

The toxic mercury that is released from old, outdated coal plants is the single biggest source of mercury poisoning in America. Tragically, the people at greatest risk are pregnant women and young children. Each year, 300,000 infants are born at risk for developmental defects because of their mother's exposure to toxic mercury pollution.

Half of American families live in places with unsafe air. Twenty million Americans suffer from asthma, including 6 million children. Asthma is the number-one illness that causes kids to miss school. The pollution from coal-fired power plants contributes to four of the five leading causes of death and is a major contributor to serious respiratory diseases like bronchitis and emphysema.

Coal's toll on public health is both expensive and deadly. Each year, the particulate matter, or soot, emanating from coal-fired power plants kills an estimated 13,000 Americans prematurely and is responsible for $100 billion in health costs.

As the industry goes after our nation's remaining reserves, ripping the coal from the ground has become progressively more brutal and dangerous. In Appalachia, mountaintop-removal mining poisons drinking water, lays waste to wildlife habitat, increases the risk of flooding, and wipes out entire communities. Already, more than 500 mountains and 2,000 miles of streams have been destroyed.

After coal is burned, the toxic ash that remains is dumped in thousands of poorly regulated waste sites nationwide. Many of these are open-air pits, from which toxins like arsenic, lead, and cadmium are seeping into the ground and contaminating drinking water. Coal ash is dumped in more than 2,000 locations across the country but isn’t currently regulated as a hazardous waste.

Coal energy is also a damaging distraction from the urgent challenge of developing energy solutions that can power our nation into and beyond the 21st century -- solutions that are already generating more and better-paying jobs for American workers. The wind industry alone already provides more jobs than the coal mining industry, and America's 2.7 million workers in the clean-tech sector earn 20 percent more than the median U.S. wage. Iowa already gets fifteen percent of its power from wind alone. Xcel Energy, in Colorado, will soon have thirty percent of its electricity from clean energy. Investments in clean-energy technologies are a bet on America's future as a global leader.

Meanwhile, the climate clock is ticking. Every ton of coal burned produces three tons of carbon pollution. The billions of tons of coal used by power plants are the largest source of greenhouse-gas emissions in the country. We cannot afford to stand by and wait for our leaders to acknowledge this threat. And we won't.

A.E.P. shuttering its attempt at carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) technology is a good example of the consequences of the lack of clear signals from the government on climate change policy. Potential innovations like these will continue to fall by the wayside unless there is a meaningful sign from Washington that clean energy requirements are on the horizon.

Without a penalty for carbon emissions, the return on investment for CCS projects is non-existent. Why would profit-seeking companies incur extra costs when they don’t have to? Unless businesses are not required to foot the bill for the environmental damage they cause, there is no reason to expect that one morning they will wake up and start spending shareholder money to contribute to the public good.

In fact, the decision to shelve CCS doesn’t come as a surprise to many; the scenario was all but foretold last year. A federal task force commissioned by Obama reported that CCS was not going to happen without setting a price on carbon.

Carbon pricing would certainly send the clearest message to the industry, inducing a shift away from the status quo and towards cleaner power plants. Setting a carbon price would induce energy groups like A.E.P. to find the cheapest ways to bring down their greenhouse gas emissions because each ton of emission avoided means fewer allowances to buy (with a cap-and-trade) or carbon taxes to pay. They will invest in technology up to the point where it is cheaper than just paying to pollute. With the current zero price on emissions, that means very little investment in carbon-reducing technology.

A carbon price would incentivize innovations like carbon sequestration; whether the technology actually works is a separate question, but at least there would be a reason for companies to try.

As an additional bonus, a carbon price creates incentives for consumers to conserve their energy use and for companies to develop energy efficiency products and technologies.

Of course, pricing carbon would create some losers—energy companies trying to milk last drops from aged plants without pollution control technology would not be better off. But congressional delay does industry in general no favor. Instead, businesses are put in a holding pattern without the ability to make investments in the future until the policy direction from Washington become clear.

This dynamic is not sustainable, and even worse, it’s the American public who ends up paying the cost with their health and lives, and in the future, through an unstable climate.

It’s unfortunate that the current political climate doesn’t make carbon pricing a viable option. Our policies should reward companies able to evolve and leave behind those most harming the American people; hopefully the American people reward politicians that deliver genuine policy alternatives, and abandon those that offer platitudes instead of progress.

We have no choice but to develop low carbon coal technology. By 2015 China will have more than 950GW of coal power – three times the level in the U.S. Unlike plants in the U.S. though, the vast majority of the Chinese coal plants are brand new and will likely be around for half a century or more. India is right behind. If these new coal plants do not capture and store their carbon emissions, it’s game over for having any hope of fighting climate change.

Scientists now say that we need to virtually zero out our carbon emissions from the production of electricity by mid-century. To have any shot, we must rapidly commercialize low carbon fossil technologies, including carbon capture and storage (CCS). But the announcement by American Electric Power to shelve its project at Mountaineer is another example of how our policy to move this technology has been ad hoc and woefully inadequate.

Its not like the technologies that make up CCS are new. Carbon capture for industrial facilities has been around for decades. And the oil industry has injected and stored over a billion tons of CO2 since the mid 1970s as part of its efforts to recover additional oil from depleted oil fields.

But we’ve failed to adopt the necessary regulations and incentives to push these technologies together (carbon capture AND storage) to drive deployment and lower costs. In part, this is because CCS has been rejected by those who believe that that climate change can be “solved” with renewables and efficiency and by the deniers who find it difficult to even acknowledge the existence of climate change.

In AEP’s recent announcement on Mountaineer, CEO Mike Morris noted that without greenhouse gas regulations, its impossible to recover the cost of installing carbon controls, despite the fact that the smaller scale CCS pilot at Mountaineer validated the technology.

We need a responsible approach to climate that recognizes CCS is essential for all fossil fuels (i.e., coal and gas). The U.S. can play a key role in CCS deployment and cost reduction in the following ways: First, the Obama Administration should propose strong new source performance standards in September that send the clear signal that CCS must be deployed on future and existing fossil power plants over a reasonable period of time. Second, the Department of Energy should reform programs like the Clean Coal Power Initiative so that award recipients receive enough funding to move projects forward. Finally, Congress should adopt significant incentives for CCS – Senators Lugar, Conrad, Bingaman, and Rockefeller have each developed a package that will encourage industry to take the necessary steps.

We can do this – all it takes is the right regulations, sufficient incentives, and the political will to see it through. Because if we don’t, pure and simple -- we just won’t avoid the worst consequences of global climate change.

There is no rationale argument for weaning the United States off coal. Consider that the U.S. possesses the world’s largest storehouse of coal at a time when all projections show global coal demand will increase substantially in coming decades. Eliminating coal’s use in this country would mean denying American households and industry the most reliable and affordable fuel for generating electricity. It would mean eliminating more than a half million jobs that pay an average annual wage exceeding $72,000. And it would mean foregoing energy security for America.

We know realistic options for affordable electricity today are dwindling at the same time a powerful industrial revolution in Asia is increasing demand for coal that is essential for steelmaking and electricity generation. But we also know there is much we can do to fully exploit the advantage coal provides for improving U.S. energy independence – a key consideration at a time of increasing global competition for energy resources.

The solution for the U.S. should be two-fold. First, strengthen our national commitment to developing advanced coal technologies that both make coal cleaner and more efficient to use. For example, supercritical pulverized coal plants achieve efficiency improvements of 22 percent and ultra-supercritical plants improve efficiency 32 percent over the current coal fleet average.

Second, we must rationalize our regulatory framework for the entire coal supply chain. We can and should continue to make significant environmental progress. But this can be accomplished in ways that sustain a vibrant coal industry capable of serving domestic and global markets and, at the same time, allow power companies to retrofit the coal fleet economically with advanced environmental and combustion technologies.

For these reasons, the challenge for the U.S. is not to reduce coal’s use but to use coal with the advanced technologies that we and the world need. That is the only sensible solution for a country with enormous reserves of coal and for a world that is destined to use more of it.

Policymakers have debated the future of coal for decades, mainly because of environmental concerns. Those concerns continue. This EPA seems determined to make regulations affecting the fuel’s use ever more stringent. And yet, coal remains the largest source of electricity generation in the United States.

In its most recent energy outlook, EIA projects generation from coal increases by 25% between 2009 and 2035, even though:

EIA projects few new central-station coal-fired power plants ... beyond those already under construction or supported by clean coal incentives. Generation from coal increases ... as a result of increased use of existing capacity.

None the less coals share of the generation mix fall from 45 to 43 percent as a result of shifts to natural gas.

If EPA regulations become even more stringent, the percentage of electricity from coal could drop even more. But coal would still remain our primary source of electricity because of existing capacity and its cost advantage.

If the Federal government decides that a “smaller carbon footprint” is needed, there are only two ways to achieve it. The first involves policies that increase the percentage of generation from natural gas. Accelerating the turn over of older capital stock would do that. The second requires a breakthrough in clean coal technology. Research on clean coal technologies has been going on for decades, but the cost of power using these remains too high.

Reducing the footprint by nuclear or renewables does not seem likely. The cost of nuclear power is too high, in large measure because the cost of capital contains a large risk premium. Additionally, resolving the impasse over Yucca Mountain appears a mountain too high to climb. The renewables panacea is like the horizon, it recedes as you approach it. Hype not withstanding, wind and solar will remain niche sources of electric power for decades to come.

The Federal government—as well as states—needs to take a clear-headed look at our electric power needs and the realistic ways of meeting them. As our economy continues its shift from manufacturing to service and as population continues to grow, our electric power needs will as well. As an input to economic output, electric power should be abundant and affordable.

Policies that attempt to “wean” the nation off of coal will make electric power less abundant and more expensive. Those would be wrong headed policies. Advances in technologies can further improve energy efficiency and cost-effectively reduce emissions. But those take time and, all too often, government is impatient and tries to force technology. That rarely works.

Exaggerated environmental impacts, especially those related to CO2, do more harm than good. Consumers and the economy would benefit from a realistic assessment of risks and cost-effective policies to address them. That is unlikely to happen. But hope springs eternal.