Obama To Announce Job Killing, Inflation Producing, Economy Slowing, Clean Energy, Plan

Today at the White House, President Obama and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Gina McCarthy will release the final Clean Power Plan, a historic step in the Obama Administration’s fight against the economy. The plan will order steeper cuts on greenhouse gas emissions from U.S. power plants than previously expected, directly causing an increase in energy costs and a loss of jobs in the energy industry. The new EPA rule demands that the states sets state targets for reducing carbon dioxide emissions from power plants or else they will do it themselves.


Since all companies rely on energy to produce/ship,etc. everyone's price to develop, manufacture and sell product will increase. Those increased energy costs will be pass along to the consumers.

Data from the federal Energy Information Administration has shown that the EPA’s Clean Power Plan, the final version of which will be released Monday, will raise electricity rates for average Americans, at least in the short term. The proposal will limit carbon emissions from power plants, and the EPA has admitted that coal’s share of U.S. power generation will drop by about 25 percent if the plan is fully implemented.

The administration is expected to unveil stringent standards but may give states until 2022 to meet emissions targets rather than 2020, as originally planned, according to media reports.

There also are questions swirling around the EPA’s new ozone standards, due out in October. The proposal is expected to lower surface ozone standards from 75 parts per billion to 65 or 70 parts per billion, and critics fear the plan ultimately could be the most expensive regulation in U.S. history.

And who is going to pay for that regulation (which estimates say will be around $10 billion/year?) The consumer---that's who.

And for those involved in the coal business it's even worse, "America’s coal miners are getting so desperate, beaten down by the lowest prices in eight years, increasing competition and mounting environmental regulations, that they’re battling each other for scraps. Details emerging ahead of the release of President Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan on Monday show pressure
from Washington to curb coal’s use will only intensify over the next 15 years, escalating the industry’s fight for survival.

The Heritage Foundation reported on July 5th that, "without the details of the final regulations, and given the complexities of state plans, it is difficult to fully model the economic effects of the Administration’s Clean Power Plan; however, economic models can provide a snapshot of the economic losses that CO2 regulations would impose. The economic consulting firm NERA projects that whether or not a plan is state-administered or EPA-administered, electricity prices will increase considerably. If states administer the plan, electricity prices will increase by an average of 12 percent between 2017 and 2031, but if the rulemaking is left to the EPA, prices will rise an average of 17 percent during that time period.

A new study commissioned by the National Black Chamber of Commerce and published this past June predicts the new regulation will leave minority communities with disproportionately fewer jobs, lower incomes and higher poverty than whites. 

The Associated Press explained who will lose in the president's new assault on the economy.

Although the administration predicts the plan will actually lower the average U.S. energy bill by almost $85 in 2030, companies that produce and distribute electricity aren't buying it. The savings come from increased use of wind, power and hydro plants, which operate at a cost of close to zero after they're installed. But acquiring and constructing renewable power sources is still very costly, making it less cost effective in many circumstances.

The National Association of Manufacturers, the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, the National Mining Association, the American Energy Alliance and the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association all predicted the rule would drive electricity bills up.

The earlier version of Obama's plan sought to accelerate the ongoing shift from coal-fired power to natural gas, which emits far less carbon dioxide. But the final rule aims to keep the share of natural gas in the nation's power mix the same as it is now.

EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy said government estimates show renewable energy has ticked upward even since the rule was proposed last year, but that natural gas remained an important part of the U.S. energy mix.

The tweaks eliminate an option for states to get credit for using efficiency programs to persuade energy consumers to use less power, one of the so-called "beyond the fence" measures to cut overall emissions that don't directly involve how power plants are operating. Because the administration is specifically regulating power plants under the Clean Air Act, the inclusion of such measures in the proposal raised concerns that they'd likely be invalidated in court.

Even so, McCarthy said U.S. energy statisticians are seeing significant and consistent reductions in the demand for energy in the U.S. The revised power plant rule does offer polluting credits to states that deploy energy efficiency programs in poorer communities.

The Wall Street Journal also predicts disaster:

If the EPA succeeds, Americans will be paying for decades. NERA Economic Consulting estimates that the Clean Power Plan will cost $366 billion and bring double-digit electricity-rate increases to 43 states. Regulators including the North American Electric Reliability Corporation warn that the plan could weaken the reliability of the national electric grid by forcing many power plants to close well before new ones can be built. Yet even the administration admits that the EPA plan will have only a trivial impact on the climate.

Here's the bottom line. The president of the United States will be introducing a regulation (another executive agreement) which will slow the economy, raise prices, and cost more jobs.  And for you folks who believe in the climate change hypothesis, it's not going to have a big impact on the economy. So why is he going to do it?  Because he wants to.