Free Republic

In the wake of increasingly successful divestment actions aimed at carbon-producing industries, coal has turned into the new tobacco. While even natural gas mining has its vocal supporters despite the dangers of fracking, the supporters of coal are shrinking as the “clean coal” touted by candidates of both political parties looks more and more like an oxymoron. But what about the people who live in coal country? What is happening to them as the institutional investors withdraw their assets from the companies topping the Carbon 200 list? As institutional investors including foundations pull their assets out of coal, are foundations...

EPA has proposed one of the largest, most expensive regulations in American history. These rules will impact our entire economy, hurt America’s diverse energy portfolio, and result in higher electricity prices while having little benefit to the environment. EPA is asking for public comment on this vast, regulatory overreach between now and December 1, 2014. We need you to share your views with EPA by sending the letter below, or using the open space to personally tell EPA how higher energy prices will impact you, your business, and your family.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) is looking into how to ban passengers from riding four wheelers in the name of public safety. The agency issued a “request for information” on Monday to learn the feasibility of prohibiting more than one person from riding an all-terrain vehicle (ATV). The notice will be published in the Federal Register on Tuesday. “Since the 1980s, the CPSC has addressed ATV safety through various activities, including rulemaking, recalls, consumer education, media outreach following fatal incidents, and litigation,” Todd A. Stevenson, secretary of the CPSC wrote. “Despite these activities, ATV-related fatalities continue to be one...

Renewable energy has become a potent rallying cry uniting Hollywood and the Beltway. “We can move our economy town by town, state by state to renewable energy and a sustainable future,” Leonardo DiCaprio says in his eight-minute climate movie Carbon, released in August. In his fiscal-showdown speech during his first term, in April 2011, President Obama put Paul Ryan’s proposals for a 70 percent cut in clean energy at the top of his list of reprehensible and unnecessary reductions. “These aren’t the kind of cuts you make when you’re trying to get rid of some waste or find extra savings...

BOSTON (AP) — Many Massachusetts households are going to see their electric bills shoot up 37 percent this winter. State regulators have approved a 37 percent increase for National Grid household customers that would mean an average of $33 per month more for the typical residential customer. Large business customers will see even higher increases.

Gina McCarthy insists reducing carbon emissions, fighting climate change boost economyGina McCarthy argued Thursday that her home state of Massachusetts is proof you can cut greenhouse gas emissions while fostering economic prosperity, but the Environmental Protection Agency administrator failed to mention the apparent trade-off for consumers: dramatically higher electricity prices. In a speech promoting President Obama’s climate change agenda, Ms. McCarthy ignored the fact that New England states — which nearly a decade ago formed the nation’s first regional “cap and trade” system — are dealing with electricity rates more than 35 percent higher than the national average. She also...

The Obama administration is preparing to introduce major steps to phase out production of a popular chemical coolant used in refrigerators and air conditioners, citing growing evidence that the substance is contributing to the warming of the planet. The White House will announce on Tuesday a series of voluntary commitments by some of the country’s largest chemical firms and retailers to move rapidly away from R-134a and similar compounds used in nearly every office, home and automobile in the country, according to current and former U.S. officials familiar with the effort.

When talking about energy and environmental policy, it is a bit troublesome to watch just how recklessly big-government environmentalists unfairly and erroneously accuse individuals and organizations of the pro-free market persuasion of being “climate deniers.” Instead of engaging in thoughtful, substantive discussion, many of these environmental activists oftentimes resort to this tactic of public shaming in order to eliminate debate and to bully individuals and groups into supporting an ever-expansive federal regulatory scheme. There is a key distinction between climate change denial and having major concerns with a proposed EPA regulation that would place a significant financial burden on the...

On Monday (Jun 2), the Obama Administration took a major step toward shutting down the US coal industry, a stated goal from his presidential campaign. The Environmental Protection Agency proposed sweeping new regulations to limit so-called “greenhouse gas” emissions from existing coal-fired power plants. These regulations would make coal-powered electrical generation in the US uneconomical. Under this plan, “electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket” as the President promised in his 2008 campaign. To what gain? The Wall Street Journal reported, “Based on the EPA's own carbon accounting, shutting down every coal-fired power plant tomorrow and replacing them with zero-carbon sources would...

When it comes to energy, climate change, justice and transparency, the Obama Administration and its Environmental Protection Agency want it every possible way. Their only consistency is their double standards and their determination to slash hydrocarbon use, ensure that electricity prices “necessarily skyrocket,” expand federal government command and control, and “fundamentally transform” America.The president was thus eager to give away Seal Team secrets in bragging about “he” got Osama bin Laden. But in sharp contrast, there has been no transparency on Benghazi, Fast and Furious, the IRS scandal – or the data and analyses that supposedly support Environmental Protection Agency...

Secret EPA water maps obtained by the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology graphically show the increase reach of the EPA’s regulatory authority over Colorado’s waters under proposed rules supported by Rep. Jared Polis (D-Boulder). The maps were drawn up in October 2013, but were only turned over to the Committee today. There is some dispute as to whether the maps relate to the Agency’s proposed Waters of the US Rules, which would bring intermittent and ephemeral waters under the agency’s control. The maps clearly delineate those waters, and were produced at the insistence of the Committee

EPA would regulate most Md waters . A new rule proposal by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ... The proposed Waters of the United States rule, which would give the EPA jurisdiction over millions of miles of streams across the United States under the Clean Water Act, has generated bipartisan backlash in both chambers of Congress. A letter to the EPA from Democratic and Republican House members stated, “Although your agencies have maintained that the rule is narrow and clarifies CWA jurisdiction, it in face aggressively expands federal authority under the CWA while bypassing Congress and creating unnecessary ambiguity.” The...

The Endangered Species Act has wreaked havoc for decades on rural communities, but a newly filed lawsuit could force San Francisco urbanites like House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi to share their pain. A federal complaint filed this week contends that the Hetch Hetchy Project, which supplies water to San Francisco and the Bay Area, has unfairly enjoyed an exemption from the “severe cutbacks” required in rural California in order to save endangered fish species. Craig Manson, who heads the Center for Environmental Science, Accuracy and Reliability (CESAR) in Fresno, said the lawsuit is aimed at addressing the “double standard” that...

Congress should use the appropriations process to reassert its authority over the Environmental Protection Agency, according to a Heritage Foundation issue brief released Tuesday.The report, written by scholar Daren Bakst, identifies three issues on which the EPA has proposed rules and regulations that exceed its authority. In all three cases, Bakst recommends that Congress prohibit the agency from using its funding to implement the proposals. (RELATED: EPA Overrides Congress, Hands Over Town to Indian Tribes)According to the report, “the EPA is using the regulatory process to require greenhouse gas emission reductions even as Congress has been unwilling to take such...

In 2011, President Barack Obama famously called for “shared sacrifice” in America. Three years later, his wish might just become the Environmental Protection Agency’s command. In the coming months, Obama’s EPA will decide whether to further tighten air quality requirements, known as the National Ambient Air Quality Standards. If the EPA gets its way (to which it is accustomed), the vast majority of the country, including Las Vegas and nearly all of Nevada, would fall into so-called “non-attainment” — when the EPA deems air pollution levels “persistently exceed” limits. This is up from a few isolated regions just five years...

More than a half-million acres of land across nine Western states is being proposed for designation as critical habitat for the yellow-billed cuckoo. According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 546,335 acres of critical habitat is up for listing in 80 separate units in Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, Utah and Wyoming. The bird is a neotropical migrant that winters in South America and nests along rivers and streams in western North America. ... The Service is seeking information concerning the western yellow-billed cuckoo’s biology and habitat, threats to the species and current efforts to protect...

It’s critically important to have high-quality cost-benefit assessments for proposed regulations, especially at the Environmental Protection Agency, which issues some of the federal government’s most expensive rules. But a new report from the Government Accountability Office finds that the EPA has employed some suspicious math in assessing several recent regulations aimed at improving air and water quality. For example, the EPA claims it examined the potential effects on employment as it drafted regulations for industrial boilers, commercial incinerators, and waste-water dischargers — but, the GAO found, the EPA was reaching these estimates by using 20-year-old labor-market research that examined only...

INDIANAPOLIS (August 12, 2014)—Journalists and scientists are urging the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to stop banning leading national scientists from talking to media outlets and the public. The EPA is placing new restrictions on independent scientists who advise the agency, according to a memorandum from the EPA’s chief of staff. The memo instructs Science Advisory Board members to get permission before talking to the press, which inhibits their ability to speak freely to the public about important scientific issues, including air pollution, toxic chemicals and water quality. “The EPA wants to control what information the public receives about crucial issues...

Before we become too optimistic about the prospects for using renewable energy sources to curb carbon emissions, it’s worth looking at a study commissioned by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which should give pause to even the most confident advocate of action against climate change. The study forecasts that new EPA regulations -- regulations intended to cut carbon emissions by 30% from coal-, oil- and natural gas-fired plants by 2030 -- will lead to higher energy costs, fewer jobs, and slower economic growth in the United States. That, in turn, will lower Americans’ standards of living. A typical household could...

Twelve states filed a lawsuit against the Obama administration on Friday seeking to block an Environmental Protection Agency proposal to regulate coal-fired power plants in an effort to stem climate change. The plaintiffs are led by West Virginia and include states that are home to some of the largest producers of coal and consumers of coal-fired electricity. The suit was filed in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. The other plaintiffs are Alabama, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota and Wyoming. The E.P.A. rule, announced by President Obama on June...