Free Republic

One of the nation’s largest coal companies on Wednesday sued President Barack Obama’s administration seeking to block the Environmental Protection Agency’s new carbon emissions rules for power plants. The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit by Murray Energy Corp. EPA rules announced this month seek to reduce global warming by forcing a 30 percent cut in carbon dioxide emissions from 2005 levels by 2030. […] “This is clearly an illegal attempt by the Obama EPA to impose irrational and destructive cap-and-tax mandates, which Congress and the American people have consistently rejected,”...

Federal authorities have issued a moratorium blocking oil, gas and coal leasing on 800,000 acres of public land in southwestern Colorado and eastern Utah that is habitat for the imperiled Gunnison sage grouse. ... restrictive measures that will impact jobs and economic development

I went to two different local concrete ready-mix plants on Friday, looking to get a small quantity (two buckets) of fly-ash for an R&D project. Both places mentioned the shortage of fly ash.

In January 2008, then-candidate Barack Obama essentially pledged to shut down the American energy market with new regulations when he said, “If somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can. It’s just that it will bankrupt them.” Two years later his destructive rhetoric continued to flow through the administration’s hallways as federal officials threatened to keep the government’s boot on the neck of oil companies that hadn’t fell in line. And unfortunately, as we learned last week, President Obama fully intends to keep his promise of dismantling the domestic coal industry once and for all. The Environmental Protection Agency...

Approximately thirty miles from my front door is a West Virginia, coal-fired power plant that was recently shut-down by the last round of Obama-imposed EPA mandates. Now the word comes down from Washington that Obama has ordered the EPA to institute another batch of non-congressionally-approved regulations, which are certain to place other West Virginia power plants in jeopardy. In another glaring lie mined by the administration, Obama says these decisions will help the environment.

Building on a long week of anti-coal attacks by the media and the Environmental Protection Agency, ABC’s June 5 “World News” revived another attack on the coal industry. ABC hyped a 2013 investigation that it conducted in partnership with the Soros-funded Center for Public Integrity (CPI). It alleged that the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions had essentially been bought off by coal companies to ignore cases of black lung disease in miners. ABC’s David Muir declared a “victory a long time in the making,” Johns Hopkins’ Dr. Paul Wheeler for allegedly “working for the coal company.” (video after break) On October 30, 2013, ABCNews.com...

White House counselor John Podesta is “fairly confident” that proposed EPA greenhouse gas restrictions can survive scrutiny under the next president — and that Democrats can campaign on the climate change issue in races this year. “If you’re a climate denier trying to run nationally, I think you’re going to have a very hard road to go getting elected president of the United States,” he said. “There’s no doubt there’s some states where this is an issue that presents a different set of political challenges, particularly coal-producing states,” he said. “And there’s no doubt that the polluters have come after...

Maybe it’s me, but the predictable right-wing cries of outrage over the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed rules on carbon seem oddly muted and unfocused. I mean, these are the people who managed to create national outrage over nonexistent death panels. Now the Obama administration is doing something that really will impose at least some pain on some people. Where are the eye-catching fake horror stories? For what it’s worth, however, the attacks on the new rules mainly involve the three C’s: conspiracy, cost and China. That is, right-wingers claim that there isn’t any global warming, that it’s all a hoax...

This is how stupid we've become: Does Obama do one stupid thing to cover for the other stupid thing? Does he do the stupid prisoner exchange to make up for the stupid carbon plan? Or is all the stupidity organic? Getting past the fact that none of this makes anybody in United States look very good, I think these are legitimate questions. Because it seems to me that Obama has waved the red meat, and the conservative lions have attacked. The red meat in this case being the exchange of prisoner Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl for five Taliban terrorists. CNN...

With the EPA's proposed new power plant rules posing a potential threat to Democrats running in coal-reliant states, Alison Lundergan Grimes is fighting back early -- and fiercely -- by attacking the president and the EPA in a new radio ad, unveiled Wednesday. In the ad, which will air mainly throughout Kentucky's coal counties in the east and west of the state, Grimes takes President Obama to task for the new regulations on carbon emissions, which would be phased in over the next 15 years. "Mr. President, Kentucky has lost one-third of our coal jobs in just the last three...

MADISON, Wis. — As the Obama administration tightens the noose around the necks of coal, power plants and mining, one Wisconsin state senator is worried the next victim could be a proposed iron-ore mine just south of Lake Superior. Gogebic Taconite is proposing building a $1.5-billion open pit mine in the Penokee hills In Iron and Ashland counties, near the small community of Mellen. An economic impact report projects the mine could create thousands of jobs in job-famished northern Wisconsin and beyond. State Sen. Tom Tiffany, who shepherded a bill that streamlined state mining regulations that could pave the way...

During the 2008 election campaign, Mr. Obama made two things clear. First, that the Constitution of the United States was a reactionary document that stood in the way of socialism. Secondly, that he was going to wage war on coal. The latest arbitrary and capricious EPA regulations requiring a 30 percent cut in national CO2 emissions by 2030 are at root unconstitutional. As Article I, Section 1, of the Constitution says, “All legislative power herein granted shall be vested in the Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and a House of Representatives.” The EPA is...

Coal-state lawmakers, accusing President Obama of using a back door to impose strict emissions limits on power plants, are rallying to slam that door shut -- claiming the plan would cost jobs and jack up electric bills. In Kentucky, West Virginia, and other states that rely on coal to fuel their own economies -- and that help generate power for everybody else -- officials vowed Monday to introduce legislation halting the newly announced EPA plan. Under the draft regulation unveiled Monday, carbon emissions at fossil fuel-burning power plants would be cut 30 percent by 2030. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., calling...

emissions by nearly 41 percent over the next 15 years as part of a sweeping plan President Barack Obama announced Monday to reduce pollution from power plants. Obama's plan calls for a 30 percent reduction in carbon emissions nationwide by 2030, when compared with 2005 levels. It sets different goals for each state, and some that rely heavily on coal won't have to make as many reductions. Minnesota is one of nine states told to reduce their 2012 levels by more than 40 percent, to help meet the nation's overall reduction goal. Officials with the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, utilities...

Natural gas is poised to be one of the biggest winners of the Obama administration’s new plan to slash carbon dioxide emissions, accelerating the electric sector’s move away from coal toward the cleaner-burning power source. Despite a modest climb in coal use for electric generation in 2013, it already has fallen out of favor in the power sector, as utilities increasingly turn to natural gas for its cheaper, lower-emission profile. The Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed standards — requiring states to pare carbon dioxide emissions 30 percent over 2005 levels by 2030 — are likely to hasten that switch. But natural...

The Obama administration knew that it wasn’t going to get applause from all of its fellow Democrats on the regulations released by the Environmental Protection Agency this morning — and not only did officials not expect any, they even gave Congressional Democrats their implicit blessing on the issue. Via Reuters: Democrats in Republican-leaning states have a simple strategy for dealing with President Barack Obama’s upcoming power plant restrictions before the mid-term elections: Fight them, with the White House’s blessing. The new rules, popular with the Democratic Party’s base, are one of Obama’s highest domestic priorities for his second term. …...

In 2008, Barack Obama said his energy plan would cause electricity prices to “necessarily skyrocket.” The Environmental Protection Agency’s latest power plant regulations seem designed to do just that. The EPA’s own regulatory analysis of its rule to cut carbon dioxide emissions from existing power plants says it will hike retail electricity by as much as 6.5 percent by 2020 — all while forcing 19 percent of the U.S. coal-fired capacity to shutdown and decreasing coal production by up to 28 percent. “Under the provisions of this rule, EPA projects that approximately 46 to 49 GW of additional coal-fired generation...

"Feeding the masses on unicorn ribs". That was how Walter Russell Mead once poured scorn on Obama's misbegotten attempts to revive the US economy by creating five million "green jobs." Mead was quite right, of course. And there was plenty of evidence to back him up, such as the 2009 report by a Madrid university professor Gabriel Calzada Alvarez that for every expensive "green job" created by government subsidy, 2.2 jobs were destroyed in the real economy. The Obama administration responded as only the Obama administration knows how: by calling in its left-wing attack dogs. Friendly organisations including George Soros's...

The U.S. power sector must cut carbon dioxide emissions 30 percent by 2030 from 2005 levels, according to federal regulations unveiled on Monday that form the centerpiece of the Obama administration's climate change strategy. The Environmental Protection Agency's proposal is one of the most significant environmental rules proposed by the United States, and could transform the power sector, which relies on coal for nearly 38 percent of electricity. Gina McCarthy, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, said on Monday that between 2020 and 2030, the U.S. amount of carbon dioxide the proposal would reduce under the plan would be more...

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — As President Barack Obama prepares to announce tougher new air quality standards, lawmakers in several states already are trying to blunt the impact on aging coal-fired power plants that feed electricity to millions of consumers. The Obama administration on Monday will roll out a plan to cut earth-warming pollution from power plants by 30 percent by 2030, further diminishing coal's role in U.S. electricity production in the process. The Environmental Protection Agency refused to confirm the details of the proposal Sunday. People familiar with the proposal shared the details on condition of anonymity, since they...