Posted on 12/05/2011 1:18:35 PM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
Reports indicate that the predominant costs of implementing the Environmental Protection Agency’s new "green" economy regulations are job loss (as coal plants are forced to close) and mass blackouts.
President Obama admitted in a 2008 interview that he is intent on shutting down the U.S. coal industry:
So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can; it's just that it will bankrupt them because they're going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that's being emitted.
A press release from GOP candidate Rick Perry's campaign claims the the Clean Air Act is specifically designed to reconfigure America's energy landscape and cause job losses. It states:
The president's ideologically driven objectives on greenhouse gases are so extreme, in fact, that the EPA recently admitted it would require 230,000 new federal bureaucrats to fully implement the terms of the Clean Air Act. The agency's admission confirms that the Clean Air Act was never intended to apply to greenhouse gases. Rather than simply concede that fact, the Obama administration has attempted to rewrite the Clean Air Act to satisfy its radical agenda of regulating the entire economy based on emissions.
Some analysts say that Obama’s agenda could result in the loss of 7,000 coal mining jobs nationwide, approximately 10 percent of the coal industry total. "President Obama claims to be a 'warrior for the middle class,' but his job-killing regulatory policies are hammering middle class families already struggling to make ends meet," said Perry spokesman Mark Miner. "The president should freeze the proposed federal regulations endangering thousands of West Virginia jobs and the very existence of the industry that provides 44 percent of America's electricity."
The Obama administration has made efforts to stop construction of new clean-burning coal plants, resulting in a shortage of energy, greatly impacting residents across the country. In July 2008, a Superior Court judge in Fulton County, Georgia, blocked the construction there of a coal plant; in 2009, the EPA blocked approval for a coal-fired power plant in South Dakota; and the list goes on.
Earlier this year, Texas utility companies were forced to plan power outages across the state, angering officials at major hospitals in Texas, who believe that hospitals should be exempt from such actions given the services they provide.
“Because of the sensitive life-saving equipment, hospitals are considered 'critical care facilities,' and supposed to be exempt from rolling blackouts,” reported CBS 11. “That’s exactly what Presbyterian [hospital in] Dallas was led to believe. 'We were of the understanding that hospitals and other critical-care providers were not supposed to be affected by planned outages,' said hospital spokesman Stephen O’Brien."
In addition to hospitals, other emergency response facilities such as nursing homes, fire departments, and police stations have been hit by power outages as well because of an increased demand.
The blackouts even forced many places in Texas to rely on Mexico for their power. “Mexico’s state electricity company on Wednesday started supplying electricity to the US state of Texas, where demand shot up amid unusually cold temperatures and caused power outages,” reported AFP.
Likewise, in New Mexico, thousands of residents were without natural gas last February, forcing Governor Susana Martinez to declare a state or emergency. Residents on the borders were asked to limit their use of natural gas while the Texas Gas Service requested larger commercial facilities to voluntarily close their doors to save supplies. Arizona residents were asked to limit their use of hot water and lower their thermostat levels.
Obama’s Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer asserted that the blackouts resulted not from EPA standards but from mechanical failures; however, those claims were refuted by the Austin American-Statesman, among others, which reported,
Texas could face power shortages as soon as next year as aging plants are mothballed in response to new environmental standards, according to the state’s grid operator and the organizations that monitors the U.S. power grids for the federal government.
The report by the North American Electric Reliability Corp. found that many older power plants in Texas will be retired rather than retrofitted to meet new federal emission standards.
To boot, the Houston Chronicle noted, “Already Dallas-based Luminant Generation Co., Texas’ largest electricity generator, has announced it intends to idle two coal-fired generating units as part of a plan to comply with the rule.”
Journalist Paul Joseph Watson opined:
The CEG [Clean Energy Group consortium] opposes the building of new plants or a delay in implementing the EPA standards, demanding instead that Americans curtail their energy use, or in other words lower their living standards to satisfy the politicized, agenda-driven, money-making scam that is climate change and the carbon credit industry.
It is worth noting that the entire carbon tax system has been proven to be a fraudulent money-making scheme in which President Obama is highly invested, as he was one of the major movers who helped launch the privately owned Chicago Climate Exchange when he served as director of the Joyce Foundation. The President himself admitted during a 2008 interview, “Under my plan for a cap and trade system, energy costs would necessarily skyrocket.”
Critics of the government-mandated "green" economy note that Spain — which in the last few years has made an all-out green push similar to that in the United States — now has soaring energy costs and an unemployment rate of over 22 percent.
"What would you say to Sen. Inhofe and others in the Senate who are resisting even science? What's your message to them here today?" Kerry asked.
"My message, I think is that the evidence is sufficient that we should move towards the most effective possible steps to reduce carbon loading in the atmosphere —"
And do it urgently, now?" Kerry interrupted.
"Urgently, yes," Gingrich said.
But Gingrich also said that up to now, conservatives have been slow to loathe with environmental policy because, he said, "For most of the last 30 years, the environment has a been a powerful emotional tool for bigger government and higher taxes. And therefore if you're a conservative, if you hear these arguments, you know what's coming next."
"So even though it might be the right thing to do, you might end up fighting it because you don't want the bigger government and the higher taxes."
Gingrich said there must be a "green conservatism."
Dec 2011: Gingrich on Cap-and-Trade “At the forum hosted tonight by Fox News host Mike Huckabee, Newt Gingrich said this about cap-and-trade:
”But if you notice, I never favored cap-and-trade. I – in fact, I actively testified against it. I was at the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee the same day Al Gore was there to testify for it. I testified against it. And through American Solutions we actively fought it in the Senate, and I think we played a major role in defeating it. “
Both the Perry and Paul campaigns e-mailed media this quote from Gingrich in 2007 on PBS after he made the claim that he had “never favored cap-and-trade”: “I think if you have mandatory carbon caps combined with a trading system, much like we did with sulfur, and if you have a tax-incentive program for investing in the solutions, that there’s a package there that’s very, very good. And frankly, it’s something I would strongly support.”
Obama is dismantling the country at breakneck speed.
Who was Governor when the state spent $6 billion power that will literally guarantee blackouts this summer?
Please write your sentence so I can try to follow your thought.
December 27, 2010: EPA, Texas go to war over carbon-emission rules "And so it begins, and on the most fertile red-state territory in the nation. Texas, which got four more seats in the House through the 2010 Census reapportionment, has had its air-quality rules superceded by the EPA as part of its aggressive new action on carbon emissions. Governor Rick Perry promises a fight:............."
Sept 12, 2011:Luminant sues EPA, says it will shut two coal units, cut 500 jobs …”At the Big Brown power plant in Freestone County, Units 1 and 2 will switch over to Powder River Basin coal and the nearby lignite mines will close. The moves will lead to about 500 job cuts, the company said.
“While Luminant is making preparations to meet the rule’s compliance deadline, this morning it also filed a legal challenge in an effort to protect facilities and employees, and to minimize the harm this rule will cause to electric reliability in Texas,” the company said in a statement.
The company is asking an appeals court for a stay implementing the Cross-State rule, saying it is illegal because the EPA didn’t include Texas in the draft rules released in 2010. The final rules released in June 2011 included a heavy emissions reduction burden for Texas.
"Another new measure made tightening air quality permits on the oil and gas industry more difficult. That law, which Perry signed in June, requires the Texas environmental agency to analyze the effect of new regulation on the economy - including how it might hurt a company - before implementation. The economic impact could override the environmental benefit of the new regulation. The new law reflects Perry's contention that global warming is a questionable theory and that regulation always creates an adverse business climate." Perry Slashed Environmental Enforcement in Texas
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Heck Mt Penitubo released more C02 in it's last major eruption than all the Co2 produced by all the earth's gas powered autos did that year.
Besides, plants love Co2 and welcom it.
The state of Texas has spent billions on wind power that will give us nothing when its hottest in summer. We could have built natural gas plants with less than half the price that would give us guaranteed bang for the buck.
Gov. Rick Perry, Attorney General Greg Abbott and Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples today announced that the state is taking legal action in the U.S. Court of Appeals challenging the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) endangerment finding for greenhouse gases.
“Texas is aggressively seeking its future in alternative energy through incentives and innovation, not mandates and overreaching regulation,” Gov. Perry said. “The EPA’s misguided plan paints a big target on the backs of Texas agriculture and energy producers and the hundreds of thousands of Texans they employ. This legal action is being taken to protect the Texas economy and the jobs that go with it, as well as defend Texas’ freedom to continue our successful environmental strategies free from federal overreach.”
The state has filed a Petition for Review with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, and will also file a Petition for Reconsideration with the Environmental Protection Agency, asking the administrator to review her decision. The state’s legal action indicates EPA’s Endangerment Finding is legally unsupported because the agency outsourced its scientific assessment to the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which has been discredited by evidence of key scientists’ lack of objectivity, coordinated efforts to hide flaws in their research, attempts to keep contravening evidence out of IPCC reports and violation of freedom of information laws.
Texas has a record of working proactively to protect natural resources and improve environmental quality. We have reduced nitrogen oxide emissions by 46 percent, cut ozone levels by 22 percent and reduced carbon dioxide emissions more than nearly every other state, all without government mandates or extravagant fines. Rather than making traditional energy sources more expensive, Texas leaders continue to support making alternative energy technologies less expensive, thereby encouraging widespread commercial use and removing barriers to innovation and competition.
“With billions of dollars at stake, EPA outsourced the scientific basis for its greenhouse gas regulation to a scandal-plagued international organization that cannot be considered objective or trustworthy,” Attorney General Abbott said. “Prominent climate scientists associated with the IPCC were engaged in an ongoing, orchestrated effort to violate freedom of information laws, exclude scientific research, and manipulate temperature data. In light of the parade of controversies and improper conduct that has been uncovered, we know that the IPCC cannot be relied upon for objective, unbiased science – so EPA should not rely upon it to reach a decision that will hurt small businesses, farmers, ranchers, and the larger Texas economy.”
As noted in comments to the EPA filed by Gov. Perry last year, the agency’s decision to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act will impose a tremendous regulatory and financial burden on farmers and ranchers, small businesses, and an energy sector that hundreds of thousands of Texans depend upon for their jobs — not to mention Texas families who face an estimated $1,200 in increased annual living costs during a down economy.
Texas’ agriculture industry, which accounts for $106 billion – or approximately 9.5 percent of Texas’ total gross state product – would be disproportionately damaged by the proposed regulations. Fully 80 percent of the land in Texas is used in some form of agricultural production. Additionally, 97 percent of Texas’ agricultural operations are run by individuals or families, and one out of seven working Texans is employed in some form of agriculture.
“EPA’s move to regulate greenhouse gases would impose devastating rules on those Texans who fuel one of our state’s largest economic sectors – farmers and ranchers,” Commissioner Staples said. “As a regulatory agency, the Texas Department of Agriculture is required to impose rules based on sound science – not political science. Not only does state law require this, but it is also a fundamental principle by which regulators all across the U.S. have always lived. EPA has ignored extensive research on greenhouse gas emissions and based this significant regulation on faulty data.”
Diversifying the state’s energy portfolio continues to be a priority for Gov. Perry. Texas has installed more wind power than any other state, and all but four countries, and has provided new transmission lines that will move more than 18,000 megawatts across the state. Texas has also attracted more than 9,000 megawatts of energy from the development of next-generation nuclear power plants. The state is also looking to add new clean coal plants that will capture and sequester carbon dioxide emissions, or use the carbon dioxide to increase production from Texas oil fields.
To view the legal petition, please click the link below.
Attached File: Petition for Reconsideration of Endangerment Cause Petition for Review
Bump!
Thank God for you, CW. You have so much information at hand to refute some of the ridiculous charges against Perry.
What I want to know is ... is Rick Perry actually Lord Voldemort, i.e. he who must not be named?
Nobody’s daring to say his name lately. they’ll mention Huntsman, Bachmann and Santorum - usually in connection with statements about their faults and how little chance they have but they NEVER SAY PERRY’S NAME anymore.
I heard Rush discuss every candidate today and never mention Rick Perry ... admittedly I only heard 5 minutes of his show.
Is there really a Rick Perry? Or did we imagine this dream candidate, a great conservative, a time-tested administrator of the Great State of Texas and a true and proven espouser of all our conservative ideals.
Is he really just a dream?
I sure hope not.
Why hasn’t Perry said no company in Texas has to abide by these EPA regulations that leave us shivering in the dark? Why hasn’t he issued permission for new power plants to be built regardless of what the feds said?
Or send back all the illegal aliens at gun point to free up jobs and reduce electrical demand, if the government won’t let us stop giving them welfare, jobs and utilities?
Federal rewrite of labor laws causing a flap down on the farm (Feds, Feds, Feds, Feds..Feds, Feds..) “LANSING, Mich. — Sparking outrage across the country’s rural heartland, the Obama administration is proposing rules to curb the ability of children on farms to engage in “corn sex” for pay.
Farmers call it corn detasseling, a time-honored but physically demanding chore designed to promote cross-pollination in the field. For decades it has been a way for teens to earn extra spending money — and forge some good-natured field hand camaraderie — for a few weeks each summer.
The Obama administration is considering revisions to federal agricultural work rules that effectively would bar teens younger than 16 from engaging in a number of traditional chores for pay — including detasseling.
Opponents of the rules across the Farm Belt argue that they are in part an attack on a way of life, one foreign to Beltway bureaucrats and one that should be encouraged in an era of rising childhood obesity rates and increasingly sedentary lifestyles.
“We need more young farmers in Oklahoma, not less. We need more young people who know where their food comes from, not less,” Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin and state Agriculture Secretary Jim Reese said in a Nov. 30 letter to Labor Secretary Hilda L. Solis.
“Any policy that would hinder the opportunities of young Americans to experience life in our agricultural communities is misguided indeed.”
The American Farm Bureau is heading a coalition of more than 70 agriculture organizations that have petitioned the Labor Department in Washington to reconsider what would be the first major rewrite of farm labor standards since the 1970s.
......“At first I thought it was a joke,” Iowa corn farmer Henry Hemminghaus recently said....“It would eliminate 40 [percent] to 70 percent of my workforce. It would probably eliminate about 1,200 out of the 2,000 kids I hire.”
“....Texas is the only state that has refused to implement the new rules. President Barack Obama is pressing ahead with the regulations after Congress failed to pass legislation capping carbon emissions. Perry, a Republican, calls the rules overreaching by the federal government that will cripple his state’s economy.”...
http://hotair.com/archives/2010/12/27/epa-texas-go-to-war-over-carbon-emission-rules/
The moves will lead to about 500 job cuts, the company said.
“While Luminant is making preparations to meet the rule’s compliance deadline, this morning it also filed a legal challenge in an effort to protect facilities and employees, and to minimize the harm this rule will cause to electric reliability in Texas,” the company said in a statement.
The company is asking an appeals court for a stay implementing the Cross-State rule, saying it is illegal because the EPA didn’t include Texas in the draft rules released in 2010. The final rules released in June 2011 included a heavy emissions reduction burden for Texas.
Texas officials quickly seized on the company’s actions as evidence of the need for regulatory reform in a slumping economy. Just a week before, ERCOT, the state’s main power grid operator, warned that the rules could threaten electric reliability with the forced retirement of older coal-fired units.
“As expected, the only results of this rule will be putting Texans out of work and creating hardships for them and their families, while putting the reliability of Texas’ grid in jeopardy,” Gov. Rick Perry said in a statement.
The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, which is charged with overseeing the state’s air quality, said the Luminant announcement is “a sad confirmation of the TCEQ’s previous statements” against the regulations.
“These rules, imposed on Texas without adequate notice and without adequate scientific justification, will kill jobs, put the brakes on economic growth, increase energy costs and impair our energy security—all with little or no positive environmental effects,” the TCEQ said in a statement.
Environmental groups hailed Luminant’s decision, however. …..” [end excerpt]
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