No American leader has done more to advance a clean energy future than President Obama. Nor has any American president done more to invoke a mandate for stricter workplace safety and environmental regulations.

And yet, ever since President Obama first visited my native southern Illinois coalfields in 1997 on a golf outing with a fellow state legislator, he has seemingly failed to grasp the staggering human and environmental toll of coal mining and coal burning on our coalfield communities-and ultimately, the nation.

Regardless of how cap' n' trade and carbon cap' n' storage schemes pan out in the far-flung future for coal-fired plants, there is one indisputable truth about "clean coal": It will ramp up deadly strip mining and underground coal mining production by an estimated 25-30 percent.

Clean coal, therefore, are not just words. It's a death sentence for coalfield communities.