John A. Gersib, Des Moines

Letter to the Editor

Oh, goodie. President Donald Trump wants to roll back or eliminate some of the clean air guidelines that President Barack Obama instated while in office. Among them, putting coal back as a major source of energy, the goal being to put coal miners back to work.

The problem I see is that many coal-fired plants are switching over to cleaner-burning natural gas. The greatest demand, right now, is from China. Even they are building more gas-fired plants due to the terrible air pollution they have. So, even though we may temporarily put people back to work, the industry itself is doomed to implode in the not-to-distant future.

There was a time when the term "clean coal" was bandied about. That would be wonderful, as the U.S. has a tremendous reserve of coal. But until that day comes, we will all breathe easier by not going back to the dirty-air days in which I grew up.

— John A. Gersib, Des Moines