Beam me to Planet Gore !
Posted on 09/28/2010 8:43:47 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Actually, it’s not just the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee’s minority contingent that fears the loss of nearly a million jobs from new EPA rules on greenhouse gases and other emissions issues. It’s also groups like the United Steel Workers, Unions for Jobs and the Environment, and experts like King’s College Professor Ragnar Lofstedt. Hot Air got an exclusive look at a report that the EPW minority staff will release later this morning detailing the economic damage that an activist EPA will do to the American economy, and which will come at perhaps the worst possible time, both economically and politically.
The executive summary spells out the stakes involved in the effort to rein in the EPA:
In fact, the new regulations threaten to put entire industries out of business. The new standard for boilers, titled “National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants for Major Sources: Industrial, Commercial, and Institutional Boilers and Process Heaters” and called the Boiler MACT, creates a standard that literally no producer in the US meets at the moment. The industry group Industrial Energy Consumers of America (IECA) represents end-user firms that employ 750,000 in various industries, and they concur:
IECA members have 6 units that were part of the best performing units and none can comply with the standards based on the best performing units. Based on the analysis of the data EPA used to develop these standards, it appears that none of the coal-fired boilers in the source category can meet the proposed standards.
What happens when the installed boilers don’t meet the new standard? Factories and other facilities will have to close, putting jobs in danger and firms already hammered by the recession will lose production days — which will destroy jobs. That’s why the United Steel Workers have sounded the alarm, insisting that the EPA’s proposal will mean disaster:
“Tens of thousands of these jobs will be imperiled. In addition, many more tens of thousands of jobs in the supply chains and in the communities where these plants are located also will be at risk.”
Nor are steelworkers the only group at risk. New industrial standards for Portland cement threaten to stop all American production in the name of environmental protection — and send the work overseas to China, where ironically the standards are more lax and more pollution will result:
“So rather than importing 20 million tons of cement per year, the proposed [rule] will lead to cement imports of more than 48 million tons per year. In other words, by tightening the regulations on U.S. cement kilns, there will be a risk transfer of some 28 million tons of cement offshore, mostly to China.” – Professor Ragnar Lofstedt, Kings College (London)
Again, no facility in the US meets the standards proposed by the EPA. Imposition of these standards would at least temporarily close almost 20 percent of all American cement producers and reduce long-term cement production from 8-15%. The cement that will be needed for construction demand will have to be imported, primarily from China, which is expanding their cement production using environmental standards significantly below current American standards. In other words, we can expect more pollution, not less — just outsourced along with the jobs in the industry.
Watch for the full report later today at the EPW Minority Caucus website.
The EPA MUST be defunded and BY LAW DESOLVED. UNTIL that can be comleted, EPA must be stripped of all regulatory authority.
And don’t get me started on the EDU et al.
The EPA is one of those agencies that should be targeted for extinction!!!
Close down the EPA. They do not run this country. Every company and all citizens should refuse to acknowledge that they have any power over our country.
I notice a lot of Freepers like to blame FREE TRADE for loss of US jobs to China/India, etc...
If you want to really understand why jobs go to China, read this article closely. Understand what tort law does to insurance rates and worker-comp. Look at the role of unions in manufacturing. Look at the costs of Govt imposed health care, taxes, etc...
The EPA is good for stopping illegal dumping of toxic waste into rivers etc....
But it has grown bloated and over controlling. It needs to be defunded and rolled into the FBI to only go after the serious offenders, not some redneck wanting to burn garbage.
If we want to be a ‘first world’ country, we have to be industrialized. We have to be able to produce our own cement, steel, oil, gas, etc....how can anyone not understand that.
RE: how can anyone not understand that.
To the left, saving the environment (and to them, it always needs saving, they won’t stop until everything is pristine) is more important than industrializing.
Already shut down wet-process cement kilns in Texas.
How will Dear Leader build his “China like” infrastructure??
“Let them make bricks with no straw!”....
The EPA MUST be defunded,they are the new POLICE of America
[ Its time to put the EPA out to pasture, now that it has become parasite status. Acid rain is gone, we police our wastes and have the know how keeping pollution in check. The EPA is now pretty much a big brother kind of micro-manager. ]
Disband it at a federal level and let it be ran by the states.
Schools nationwide use boilers for heat.
Is the EPA going to be allowed to shut down schools & put millions of Democrat supporting teachers out of work?
You see, without SOMETHING, industrial competition forces a race to the bottom in environmental mitigation. The trick is to incorporate motive for that activity into the conduct of competitive operations on an efficient and objective basis.
I published and patented a free market alternative environmental management business method. Everybody, including here at FR, just went on wailing "less is better." "We just want 'responsible' regulations," as if they can show what those are.
In that respect, conservatives are exactly like the greenies: They both want the power to decide what is or is not harmful to someone or something else in the choices they make and who will bear the costs or derive the benefits of those choices.
There must be the basis for a lawsuit against the EPA on constitutional grounds in here somewhere!
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