Montgomery Advertiser Editorial - Alabama PSC Not A Church: "This Is How Theocracies Take Root"

EDIT

We urge PSC President Twinkle Cavanaugh and Commissioner-elect Chip Beeker to read the law, as they appear to have forgotten or to have shockingly misunderstood its provisions. The PSC is a public utility regulating agency. It is not a religious organization or a platform for imposing personal religious beliefs on public policy decisions. Yet there stood Cavanaugh and Beeker, rattling on in their endless condemnation of the "war on coal" prior to an EPA hearing on proposed emission regulations. This time, however, their message was couched not in policy terms or even in the scientifically ignorant mindset that dominated this year's campaigns for the PSC, but in religion.

This is how theocracies begin to take root. The religious beliefs of these two officials are their own business and we make no judgment about them here, but the policy decisions they make or support or in other ways influence are not. These are the business of every Alabamian because they affect the lives of every Alabamian.

Speaking from a pulpit otherwise known as the offices of the Alabama Coal Association, Cavanaugh and Beeker invoked the name of God in their criticism of the EPA proposal that would cut carbon emissions from power plants. In Alabama, the plan would require coal-fired power plants to reduce emissions by 27 percent from 2012 levels.

Beeker declared that God created the coal that lies beneath the ground in Alabama and that the federal government shouldn't impose policies that conflict with the divine plan. "Who has the right to take what God's given a state?" he said. No one is taking anything, of course; the proposed regulations do not ban the use of coal, despite its enormous contribution to global warming. Indeed, a believer might just as easily argue that reducing these emissions is consistent with the call to care for God's creation.

EDIT

http://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/story/opinion/editorials/2014/07/30/psc-religious-platform/13392197/