Wednesday, August 03, 2011

Welcome to the Fight Against Obama's Job Killing EPA

It seems more states are starting to realize that Obama's EPA and its continued expansion of regulations and power is going to kill economies and state coffers. In Ohio, we are seeing power companies like Beckjord close down rather than pay the exorbitant fees. Of course, Obama told us he was going to do this, but no one listened:


However, states appear to be waking from ignorance and are now wanting to fight the EPA. PajamasMedia's PJ Tatler has a compendium of stories that show how Obama is destroying the economy state by state:
The fact is, the EPA is chipping away at 26 states and their economies via the cross-state rule and the Maximum Achievable Control Technology (MACT) rule. The MACT rule alone could force enough power plant shutdowns to cost 30 to 70 gigawatts of power (one gigawatt powers about 750.000 homes). Some of the targeted states are starting to wake up to the threat: rate hikes, lost power production leading to outages, lost jobs, worse economies. Here’s a sample of reaction in states beyond the Lone Star.

INDIANA
U.S. consumers, many of whom are struggling just to put food on the table, can little afford to pay substantial hikes for electricity. Every industry depends on electricity. Higher overhead costs mean fewer jobs and higher prices for products. (Not the time for stricter emissions, Lafayette Journal and Courier, July 23, 2011).

The utility industry says the standard will lead to double-digit rate hikes for consumers and will likely require costly upgrades to some power plants. (Effort to curb pollution means power bills will rise, Indianapolis Star, July 30, 2011)

OHIO
Even with 14 million Americans out of work and an economy still searching for light at the end of the tunnel, the EPA is poised to enact a series of back-door mandates that will stifle economic growth. And with the speed that this runaway train is traveling, Ohioans should be scared of the “Train Wreck” headed towards a town near you. (Ken Blackwell: EPA’s Train Wreck Could Leave Ohio in the Dark, Huffington Post, July 23, 2011)

MICHIGAN
Between now and then, DTE will have to shutter 10 coal-burning units, reducing capacity by 20 percent to meet new Environmental Protection Agency regulations on coal plants. Updating the plants to comply with the new EPA standards in the three-year period allowed would be massively expensive. So DTE will take them off line. That will reduce reserves to 6 percent and leave the system vulnerable to blackouts on scorching hot days like the ones we’ve had this month. (EPA raises risk of blackouts, Detroit News, July 31, 2011)

GEORGIA
“Georgia Power said it can’t meet a five-month deadline imposed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to cap and regulate two major pollutants from its coal-fired power plants. … The default could mean customers end up paying more money. … The utility also has said it plans to close two of the four coal-fired units at Plant Branch. Plant McDonough’s two coal units are being converted to three natural gas units, the first of which will start producing power next year.” (Kristi Swartz, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, July 23)

The Obama EPA is doing all of this despite the fact that, in Texas’ case, it has its own clean air program which is at least as effective as the EPA’s, and its emissions don’t even affect other states. The EPA’s own science shows that. And, over the last few decades, power generators nationwide have been reducing emissions on their own as a result of previous regulations.

Over the past several years, additional emissions controls have been introduced into the power generation fleet, which has reduced emissions even further. By 2015, the coal-fired power generation industry will have invested $125 billion in coal utilization technologies that burn coal cleaner and with more efficiency.

Power plant emissions are already down nearly 80 percent since 1970. A coal-fired power facility built today is, on average, 90 percent cleaner than the one it replaces, according to the National Energy Technology Laboratory. Ironically, the ability to build those new plants is next to impossible due to even more stringent EPA regulations.

This president came into office threatening to use the regulatory state to force changes on the US economy in ways that he knew would hurt. We’re in an odd moment, with a government that is intentionally strangling the energy side of the economy and standing in the way of tapping into domestic oil and nuclear sources (while claiming that it cares about jobs). That leaves green, which is the end game for Obama, but green is unreliable, expensive and nowhere near ready to produce anything like the volumes of energy these states need. And if Spain is any hint at the future, green energy is also an open invitation to corruption.

This multi-state EPA assault is intentional and it is a power grab. And it needs to be stopped.


And, with all the heat out there, people are going to die as power rates skyrocket and people cannot afford AC in summer or heat in winter. Well, that will reduce the cost of medicare, as old folks die. Hmmm...maybe that has been the plan all along....It's starting to make sense now...

Seriously, this is an unprecedented assault on state and individual rights, but that has been the crux of all of Obama's agenda. And this is the time and now is the hour. If Boner and Co. in Congress won't fight for our rights, then our states and the leadership in them must fight DC.