Electricity utility Ameren was one of many that took a cautious response to the president’s proposal that it said only offered general terms.

“[The company] looks forward to continue working with the administration ... to put in place thoughtful energy policies that will enable a sensible transition to a cleaner generation portfolio over time,” officials said.

“When establishing any regulations, we must balance the needs of customers, system reliability, the economy and the environment.”

Illinois Coal Association president Phillip Gonet, the head of a group in a state that has performed uncharacteristically well as of late in terms of coal production, said the industry knew something was coming.

“We’ve gotten the short shrift form the federal government for quite some time, so we’re used to it,” he said as he questioned Obama’s position on global warming being caused by humans.

“Everybody is going to say I’m a shill for the coal industry, but I don’t think global climate change is a settled deal.

“There has to be more study before we spend billions and billions of dollars that is going to come out of the pockets of consumers.”

Colorado Mining Association president Stuart Sanderson, said the US might cut carbon emissions but it would not solve the global problem of greenhouse gases.

“Any effort to impose these restrictions unilaterally in the US without participation in the developing world and other countries would accomplish nothing,” he said, adding that he hoped any proposals brought forth were “reasonable and cost effective”

In Pennsylvania, the nation’s fourth-largest coal producing state, Governor Tom Corbett agreed.

He pointed out that a true “all of the above” energy portfolio existed – coal, nuclear, natural gas, wind, solar, and hydropower – and that, overall, market-based approaches were working.

“With our greenhouse gas emissions at the lowest they've been in nearly two decades, we know that much of the increase in global carbon emissions are attributable to growth in other countries such as China,” Corbett said.

“This means that global warming requires a global response if there is to be any meaningful action that does not put our nation at an even greater competitive disadvantage.

“Here in Pennsylvania, nearly 63,000 men and women, including 8100 miners, work in jobs supported by the coal industry. This proposal is not only a war on coal, as suggested by a White House climate adviser, but also a war on jobs.”

West Virginia representative Nick Rahall, who represents the coal-rich southern coalfields of the second-largest coal state, called Obama’s plan “misguided, misinformed and untenable” and fellow state representative Shelley Moore Capito said the power source and jobs were being threatened.

“Today’s announcement is another move in the president’s tyrannical game of picking winners and losers in the energy industry,” Capito said.

Some US utilities pointed out that the Obama proposal might limit carbon dioxide emissions from coal but let other sources of emissions – such as petroleum fuels – alone.

“The devil is in the details,” Power plant operator Luminant spokesman Brad Watson said. “The rules have to be practicable and actionable and within the Clean Air Act.

“Overall, we want to see a policy that's broad and that would cover all sectors, not just the power sector and especially not just coal generators.”

Officials for Ohio-based utility American Electric Power, meanwhile, said it hoped the Obama administration will take a “balanced approach” that included flexibility for facility owners.

“The focus on resilience, clean coal technologies, electric vehicles, energy efficiency and transmission investment demonstrates that the administration is looking at a full portfolio of actions to address the issue – not just cutting emissions from power plants,” spokeswoman Melissa McHenry said.

Never one to mince words, Murray Energy chief executive officer Robert E Murray said the administration’s plan would have a significant impact on Americans’ standards of living and “destroy lives”

Murray, who has long said Obama had waged a “war on coal” and the industry, also accused the President of wanting to see more Democratic states such as California, Massachusetts and New York prosper on the backs of the more politically-balanced Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania.

“President Obama's proposal is yet another attempt to decimate the United States coal industry and destroy the thousands of good-paying, well-benefited jobs the industry provides,” Murray told local newspaper the Wheeling Intelligencer.

“[The plan will] destroy the lives and standards of living for many Americans.”

Obama’s three-pronged plan, presented as a 21-page blueprint, focuses on slicing domestic carbon emissions – which may likely result in staggering changes to US coal production and electricity generation – as well as upping investments in climate resilience measures and stepping up to a lead role in international climate change issues.

The President has ordered the US Environmental Protection Agency to “expeditiously” complete performance standards to lower carbon emissions from existing power plants and finalize carbon limits rules for new facilities by September 20.

The EPA also has been directed to draft carbon limits for existing power plants by June of next year. Those limits will ultimately be finalized in 2015.

ILN will bring more dispatches from the front.