Posted on 09/20/2013 10:40:10 AM PDT by jazusamo
The Environmental Protection Agency’s dramatic new power plant emissions standards already have touched off a firestorm within the coal industry and on Capitol Hill, with top Republicans promising to fight tooth-and-nail against President Obama’s climate-change agenda.
The EPA, the leading actor in the White House’s ambitious global-warming initiative, released the limits on Friday. Hopes that they’d be much less stringent than previous proposals proved to be misplaced.
Coal-state lawmakers from both parties are promising to push back.
“The president is leading a war on coal and what that really means for Kentucky families is a war on jobs. And the announcement by the EPA is another back door attempt by President Obama to fulfill his long-term commitment to shut down our nation’s coal mines,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Kentucky Republican.
Kentucky is one of the nation’s largest coal producers.
“Our miners and their families have had enough and it must stop,” Mr. McConnell continued. “I will continue to fight aggressively in the Senate on behalf of our coal miners to save these jobs and our state and to ensure they are protected from this president and his anti-coal allies in the U.S. Senate.”
The new power-plant standards are somewhat generous to natural gas, allowing large gas-fired power plants to emit up to 1,000 pounds of CO2 per megawatt hour. Natural gas facilities, which produce much less carbon than coal plants, should be able to meet that limit. But the standards — if unchanged during the looming public comment and review period — will effectively ban the construction of any new coal-fired power plants.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
We know one thing for sure, electricity prices are gonna go way up. Consider that in all your upcoming purchases of items.
I read in the WSJ that it’s becoming cost effective in Japan for homeowners to generate their own power via nat gas powered fuel cells. That may be the future in Americad as grid prices escalate.
Is there anybody in this administration that doesn’t belong in jail?
Ping!
Scotus thinks delegation of law making to unelected bureaucrats is just fine.
It isn't, but won't stop until we the people ban this practice and return ALL lawmaking to Congress.
Article V is the only way.
Defund the EPA!!
You couldn’t be more correct, electricity prices will skyrocket.
I’d bet natural gas prices will go up way in the near future also.
BUMP!!
What is your rationale for nat gas prices going up?
Most everything I’ve read says the frackers are finding it in awesome quantities.
“At the end of the day, that is what the issue of climate change is all about. That’s why EPA cares,” Ms. McCarthy said during a speech at the National Press Club in Washington. “The president’s climate action plan calls on federal agencies to take steady, sensible and pragmatic steps to cut the harmful carbon pollution that fuels our changing climate and to prepare for unavoidable impacts based on the climate change that is already happening and is inevitable.”
Ms. McCarthy also said the agency will take its next step in the summer of 2014 by offering standards for existing coal power plants, some of which are a half-century old and could not possibly meet the limits without hundreds of millions of dollars in upgrades. But she disputed the notion that coal-fired facilities effectively have been banned.
“They have a path forward for the next generation of power plants in this country,” she said of the coal industry, pointing to carbon capture and sequestration technology that traps CO2 before it is emitted into the air.
While such technology does exist, at this point it’s cost prohibitive — and will remain so for the foreseeable future, industry leaders and lawmakers say.”
But there will be a ton of rhetoric before the GOP quietly throws in the towel.
Obama just handed Mitch McConnell his reelection. Seniority on this will be an effective card to use against Bevins, and Grimes has made several unfortunate anti-coal statements.
That is interesting. In Japan ~95% of their Natural Gas is imported, all of it by LNG tanker ships. Natural Gas in Japan is very expensive.
With the shutdown of the Nuclear Reactors and significantly more power generated by Natural Gas, those prices have been rising and are expected to continue to rise.
I believe that shutting down coal plants will lead to natural gas plants being built to replace them and though we have all we need at the present time it won’t remain that way. I seriously doubt we’ll be putting in nuclear plants because of the enviros.
Ping.
Pity the Coal Miners: A Greener Environment’s Biggest Losers
by Stuart Stevens Jun 28, 2013 4:45 AM EDT
Good, well-paying jobs are being killed as part of President Obama’s fight against climate change. Stuart Stevens on the poor folks bearing the brunt of new regulations.
Sue the bastards.
Sue Obama, sue the EPA director, sue the EPA, sue any scientists that push this crap, sue CNN, sue them all, every last one of them, and get them all to provide in court SOLID PROOF that
(a) global warming is even occurring now;
(b) humans really are responsible for most global warming;
(c) any of these EPA schemes will make the slightest difference in total CO2 output.
...because each of these 3 claims is false, and cannot be proven!!
SUE!!! It’s the only tactic that will work!!!
Glad you stopped by, should have pinged you.
Can’t link the story since it’s subscriber.
Says the unit costs about $20k.
Is there anybody in this administration that doesn’t belong in jail?
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