Periodically during Obama's presidency, our local "newspapers" would offer an editorial that told us about the potential advantages of clean coal and how the Obama administration was doing everything it could to prevent its research and development. For example, from a September editorial:

But during Obama’s presidency, he and liberals in Congress have limited support for clean-coal development while pouring billions of dollars into subsidies for solar and wind power.

Of course, no evidence was ever cited. With Trump's victory, the locals continued to press for what many see as a yet to be proven and potentially very expensive technology. From a January editorial:

His administration should do more to develop clean-coal technology, McConnell told Trump.

That will be critically important to ensure industries such as utilities can continue burning coal while not harming the environment. The Obama administration slashed federal funding to develop better ways to burn coal. Trump should ensure adequate money is available.

Trump's proposed budget was recently released and while the locals have published the reactions of our senators, neither they nor the senators have said anything about the president's proposal to severely cut back research into making clean coal possible. Others have, however. From Gizmodo:

Trump Promised 'Really Clean Coal,' Suggests Obliterating Funding For Clean Coal Research

Similarly, from Bloomberg:

Trump Dumps 'Clean Coal' Research Despite Lauding Its Potential

And here are the details:

President Donald Trump promised his administration would bring about “clean coal,” but his budget proposed slashing research the industry says it needs to make that a reality.

The Energy Department has spent more than $200 million a year on research into ways to capture and store the carbon dioxide emitted when coal is burned to make electricity. Under Trump’s proposal released Tuesday that would be cut to $31 million, an 85 percent reduction.

And so if Trump gets his way, funding for clean coal research will become a fraction of what it was under the Obama administration. It will be interesting to see if our local "newspapers" will cover this and if they do, how they will explain it. My hunch is that they'll use some verbal gymnastics and blame it on our former president because anything that goes wrong is always Obama's fault.