What happens a guy with verifiable liberal credentials (contributing editor at Rolling Stone and a contributor to The New York Times Magazine, The New Republic and Air America) just happens to have written a book highly critical of the coal industry – “Big Coal: The Dirty Secret Behind America’s Energy Future”?

You put him on television or the front page of your opinion section and you parade him out as a coal industry expert – if you’re the mainstream media that is.

But if you’re a viewer, you might not know Jeff Goodell is predisposed for a variety of reasons against the coal industry. Goodell is opposed to coal as an energy source because he believes it contributes to global warming, is not convinced technological advances will make it more environmentally friendly, thinks it is unsafe to mine and has doubts about its sustainability as a resource.

“But the big issue is global warming. Burning coal accounts for more than one-third of U.S. emissions of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas,” wrote Goodell in the August 26 Washington Post.

Goodell doesn’t even hide his skepticism of our coal reserves, despite “Claims about a 250-year supply of coal won't stand up to scrutiny for long, either. Yes, the United States has more coal than any other nation. But we've been mining coal in this country for 150 years -- all the simple, high-quality, easy-to-get stuff is gone.”

But with all these criticisms of coal and his questioning of its viability, he still questions “how many mining tragedies will we accept in the name of ‘cheap’ electricity?”

So what is his solution to finding an alternative resource that currently provides 50 percent of our electricity, as with most left-wing solutions – raise taxes.

Goodell wants to create a carbon-emissions tax and that somehow will eliminate American’s dependence on coal.

Perhaps Goodell would be best described as an “Anti-Coal Industry Attack Dog” instead of Coal Industry Expert.