Given that reality, you’d think that support for efforts to reduce coal’s climate-changing emissions would be in the Republican Party’s platform by now. But ask almost any Republican on an environmental committee — or better yet, ask the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, of the coal state of Kentucky — where his or her bill is to support these options, and it’s a good bet you’ll get a blank stare.

That’s because, for all their sound and fury on the importance of American coal mining, some of my colleagues have boxed themselves in so tightly by denying the science of climate change that any solution is impossible for them to support. In the unusual world of climate politics, Republicans who help coal companies reduce their carbon emissions would have to admit that those emissions are a problem worth discussing — and for a variety of reasons, they can’t do that.

Endorsing federal funding for pilot projects for carbon capture, which the industry wants, or opening the door to new potential technologies for reducing coal’s climate impact would qualify as caving in to the environmental lobby. Since Republicans control both the House and Senate, this upside-down political dynamic has become the biggest obstacle to the industry’s getting what it wants most: assistance in meeting the new standards.

Bills pending in the House and Senate would offer varying degrees of federal support for carbon capture technology. You can agree or disagree philosophically with spending taxpayer money to smooth the way forward for coal, but most of my Republican counterparts don’t even want to discuss the issue. In fact, they certainly don’t want to talk about the larger issue of why climate standards are necessary.

By adopting a post-Obama political vision of lax federal regulation and a return to pre-Obama profit margins, some of my colleagues have made themselves irrelevant to serious discussions about the coal industry’s future. Those of us who want to see coal company employees successfully navigate the rough waters ahead are more interested in providing economic opportunities than in posturing. But we can’t have that discussion as long as climate change is treated as a hoax.