Hey, I'm Kelly McEvers.

And I'm Chris Benderov.

And this is embedded.

Okay, so it's January 2008.

Barack Obama is running for president.

And he meets the editorial board of the San Francisco Chronicle.

It's pretty amazing to go back in time and hear Professor Soria Obama.

Third point, and this will be, uh, I'm actually four.

Talking about how he can bring people together, repair America's reputation overseas.

And then he gets asked why he introduced a bill

that would encourage more coal production.

When he also believes that the US should reduce greenhouse gases.

I think clean air is critical and global warming is critical.

But this notion of no coal, I think, is an illusion.

So he's not threatening to ban coal or anything.

But then he talks about this plan where electricity plants that burn coal would have to pay

fines if they don't reduce certain emissions.

So if somebody wants to build a coal-pired plant, they can.

It's just that it will bankrupt them

because they're going to be charged a huge sum

for all that greenhouse gas that's being emitted.

So yeah, the future is not going to be easy for coal-pired power plants.

...