Sarah Palin, John McCain’s “energy expert” in 2008, now appears to be setting the agenda for Mitt Romney. On Earth Day, Palin bashed the “holiest of days for EcoLiberals,” saying in a National Review blogpost that it should be celebrated with “drill, baby, drill.” On Monday, Romney followed Sarah Palin’s lead, telling an audience at a major coal company that he too opposes environmental regulations for drilling of coal, oil, and natural gas.

Romney even adopted Palin’s language in his speech at a Consol Energy research facility:

PALIN: “It’s time for the greatest nation on earth to tap into its full potential, and one surefire way to do so is to tap into what is beneath this earth.”

ROMNEY: “The course that I will put us on is to take advantage of what comes from above the ground as well as what comes from below the ground so that America can finally become energy-secure and independent of the oil cartel.”

“Romney’s energy and environmental platform calls for stripping EPA’s power to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and expanding oil-and-gas leasing to include areas that are currently off limits, including the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, among other measures,” The Hill’s Ben Geman writes.

Romney denied that global warming is caused by burning fossil fuels at a Consol Energy facility last year. Consol has given $5000 to the Romney campaign and $150,000 to the Romney SuperPAC.

Local Pittsburgh media is reporting that “Consol Energy Inc. and the Pittsburgh Penguins announced on Monday a 21-year deal for naming rights to the new Pittsburgh multipurpose arena.” Consol, based in Pittsburgh, is the nation’s fifth largest coal producer, and a major practitioner of mountaintop removal mining.

By the time this deal expires, actual penguins may be driven to extinction. The global warming pollution from fossil fuel companies like Consol has wreaked dramatic changes to the penguins’ habitat in the southern hemisphere. Ninety percent of Antarctica’s glaciers are in retreat. The Antarctic ice sheet is losing 36 cubic miles of ice a year. Scientists have found that global warming is threatening the Galapagos, king, emperor, Adelie, and the other thirteen species of penguins on the planet.

But the Pittsburgh Penguins are ebullient. Said Penguins president David Morehouse:

Inside on the ice, on the scoreboard, on the dasher boards, Consol Energy will have a major presence, and they’re going to be a major partner with us going forward.

Unless we halt the unregulated burning of coal immediately, we may doom ourselves to an ice-free planet. And then worrying about the fate of other species will seem like a luxury.

(H/T The Green Agenda)