November surprise: EPA planning major post-election anti-coal regulation

The Washington Examiner ^ | 11/4/12 | Conn Carroll

[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.

[milemark]

“a select few costly regulations that would then be very hard for a President Romney to undo”

Why can’t a Romney admin. undo what the Obama admin has done? I understand that the career beurocrats stay on, but if they refuse to do what they are instructed to do by the new director of the agency, that is grounds to fire them, no?

[upchuck]

If the Republicans fail to take the Senate, President Romney will be essentially stymied in making any type of changes, including repealing nobamacare.