One of the few promises Obama has kept: he would bankrupt the coal industry. Remember his words below:
“So if somebody wants to build a coal-fired plant they can. It’s just that it will bankrupt them…”
Back in December he and the EPA announced the mega-nuke bomb that would bankrupt the coal industry and the Institute for Energy Research had this to say:
“The utility MACT will increase the cost of electricity for American families, and in some places where coal-fired generation is the prevailing source of power, the prices will necessarily skyrocket just like President Obama promised. It will result in the loss of jobs, both in places where power plants will close and among small businesses that employ more than 60 percent of our workforce.
But Obama must believe coal plants are like cockroaches & can survive a nuclear blast, because it wasn’t enough to simply *bomb the industry,* today he and EPA’s Lisa Jackson announced they intend to bury the industry:
EPA Proposes First Carbon Pollution Standard for Future Power Plants/Achievable standard is in line with investments already being made and will inform the building of new plants moving forward.
So what does this “government double-speak mean”? Funny how bureaucrats can make something so malignant sound so benign.
The proposed rule — years in the making and approved by the White House after months of review — will require any new power plant to emit no more than 1,000 pounds of carbon dioxide per megawatt of electricity produced. The average U.S. natural gas plant, which emits 800 to 850 pounds of CO2 per megawatt, meets that standard; coal plants emit an average of 1,768 pounds of carbon dioxide per megawatt.
The CEO of the National Mining Association, Hal Quinn had this to say:
EPA’s proposal for controlling greenhouse gas emissions from about half the nation’s electric power supply is a poorly disguised cap-and-tax scheme that represents energy and economic policy at its worst. Higher utility bills and fewer jobs are the only certain outcomes from this reckless attempt to override Congress’s repeated refusal to enact punitive caps on carbon dioxide emissions.
“Requiring coal-based power plants to meet an emissions standard based on natural gas technology is a policy overtly calculated to destroy a significant portion of America’s electricity supply. This is a movie we have seen before, and the script remains unchanged. Volatile natural gas prices will, once again, expose millions of households to higher utility bills, threaten hundreds of thousands of workers with unemployment and weaken both the competitiveness of basic industries and the reliability of the nation’s electricity grid.
“This proposal is the latest convoy in EPA’s regulatory train wreck that is rolling across America, crushing jobs and arresting our economic recovery at every stop. It is not an “all of the above” energy strategy; it does not create jobs; and it does not make it easier for Americans to pay their mortgages. Instead, the proposed New Source Performance Standards would deliberately push America to abandon coal, its most abundant and reliable energy source in favor of costlier fuels—even though Congress has repeatedly rejected this policy.
“NMA urges Congress to assert its authority over an agency that disregards the public need for affordable electricity and ignores the overwhelming costs of its regulations.”
So let’s take a look at where your electricity comes from. I’m going to pull out a few states from this interactive map from America’s Power and show you the states that rely heavily on coal:
- Ohio: 82%
- Indiana: 90%
- Kentucky: 93%
- Wyoming: 89%
- West Virginia: 97%
- Utah: 81%
- Missouri: 81%
- New Mexico: 71%
- North Dakota: 82%
Let’s hope these states know what to do come November 6.
But all is not lost. EPA Chair Lisa Jackson has provided for a 60 day public comment period.
Crossposted at Unified Patriots
