Posted on 11/04/2012 8:52:44 AM PST by markomalley
President Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency has devoted an unprecedented number of bureaucrats to finalizing new anti-coal regulations that are set to be released at the end of November, according to a source inside the EPA.
More than 50 EPA staff are now crashing to finish greenhouse gas emission standards that would essentially ban all construction of new coal-fired power plants. Never before have so many EPA resources been devoted to a single regulation. The independent and non-partisan Manhattan Institute estimates that the EPA’s greenhouse gas coal regulation will cost the U.S. economy $700 billion.
The rush is a major sign of panic by environmentalists inside the Obama administration. If Obama wins, the EPA would have another four full years to implement their anti-fossil fuel agenda. But if Romney wins, regulators will have a very narrow window to enact a select few costly regulations that would then be very hard for a President Romney to undo.
Environmentalists at the EPA pulled this trick before in 2000 when the Clinton administration rushed out a finding that Mercury emissions from power plants were a growing public health threat pursuant to the Clean Air Act. That finding did not regulate power plants itself, but it did force the Bush administration to begin a lengthy regulatory process. The Obama EPA has estimated that this regulation alone will cost the U.S. economy $10.9 billion a year.
Yes, theoretically, the EPA could be reined in or abolished, through legislation by Congress, and signed into law by a president.
These unelected liberal EPA bureaucrats have way too much power. The EPA, and all government agencies, serve under the President and Congress, not the other way around. Elected officials are supposed to tell them what to do, not the other way around.
Yes, Congress and a President can override anything the EPA does. Whether the political will is there to do so remains to be seen.
Bump
New law needed: all regulations wanted by any government agency, must be passed by both houses of congress in stand alone bills.
Time to make this known in the coal states, especially PA.
Congress is so "bought and paid for" they very seldom, if ever, work FOR the citizens of the Country.
They are flaring the well just over the hill from me right now...sounds like ENERGY INDEPENDENCE and WORK!
Exactly... Beck had a bud on that wanted to go Coal to Oil for 25/barrel for his airlines, but they needed a bond from Fedzilla to do it and they wouldn’t ( a hedge against the Saudi’s dropping to $10 a barrel ).
Are you in PA? Obama has actually come out with support for fracking in PA, but nowhere else. Obama realized early on that he would lose the election in PA if he opposed fracking. He also sent the Carlisle Group into to Philadelphia with eased EPA regulations to ease the gasoline crunch there.
Don’t look for it to last if Obama wins re-election.
You are way too optimistic.
After coal is destroyed, fracking is next on the list.
“Coal oil” is NOT bio-Diesel. Therefore, it cannot be allowed.
Environmentalism is an irrational, urealistic religious cult.
Their goal is for all of us to starve in the cold and the dark so that they can feel good about saving Gaia. They’re evil.
Twitter it and tag it #Ohio #PA #Obama let’s get this out there!!!
My guess is before you know it, Liberals will be screaming at their financial advisers to get them some Fracking Mutual Funds just like they did in the 90's to get some Tech Funds, after all they have to keep up with their friends getting huge returns....When that happens all their Enviro self interest will go out the door, money talks more than anything....
I have been told that the AFL-CIO President is in Eastern Ohio this weekend telling coal miners that Obama is on their side. What a freakin joke!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wzNUZVv0A0
It is not that easy. As Mark Levin explained, most of these oppressors were hired into the civil service where they cannot be touched.
OTOH, I don’t see why Romney’s EPA cannot rescind the regs.
“By killing coal they kill it for good for other uses.”
Our company also uses coal indirectly. A very large percentage of our plants in the eastern US use synthetic gypsum exclusively to make sheetrock. Synthetic gypsum precipitates out when stack gases from coal plants are “scrubbed” of sulfur content. The syngyp is generally 96% pure. Most of our new plants are built very close to coal power plants. If these plants are eliminated, some of our plants may have to be shut down.
The residents and businesses still in the dark from Sandy aren’t begging for solar panels and wind turbines. They are begging for gas and diesel for generators because they need power all the time, not just in daylight and wind.
Clinton pulled this with a wide range of regulations:
- Clean water standards on rangelands for ephemeral streams - one cowpie when the stream was running was enough to cause problems for a rancher.
- Pesticide regulations and safety “standards” that are based on idiotic notions of toxicology which are not backed up by science. A whole host of pesticides were de-labeled as a result, driving costs to farmers up.
- Clean water standards on arsenic were reduced from 50 ppb to 10 ppb, which has no justification in any research. Again, based on witchcraft posing as science. This single regulation cost taxpayers in the intermountain west hundreds of millions of dollars when their local muni water sources no longer were in compliance because the west has a lot of ground water that’s anywhere from 15 ppb to 45 ppb arsenic.
I could go on and on, but there’s lots of regs that Clinton left in the EPA on the way out the door that caused huge problems for the country. Bush tried to reverse the arsenic reg, but caught huge blowback in the press from it. The environazi’s had a pre-planned press package ready for the reversal attempt, because they knew that a lot of “red states” would be asking for variances or the reg eliminated. Bush listened, and then got creamed in the press for it.
If Romney wants to stop or reverse this coal reg flurry, he’d better have a PR campaign set up to discredit Obama, the environmentalists and, if that fails, set up FERC to pass on the higher costs of power generation to the urban areas that voted for Obama. Give the Obama voters what they want - higher power rates. Crush them under power rate increases like they’re seeing in Germany - up to a quadrupling of power rates (per kWh) for environmentally-correct power.
Surely the states or the coal companies can tie up EPA & these regs in court until Jan. 20, 2013.
That's because Bush didn't have the balls to tell the EPA to shove their regulations up their ass. That was because he mostly agreed with them, being that he was a "compassionate conservative", IE liberal.
I'm sorry that I ever supported the sorry SOB. But at the time what were my choices? Gore? Blech. The traitor Kerry?
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