President Barack Obama on Monday will be revealing new regulations to cut down on so-called "carbon pollution," calling it the “biggest, most important step we’ve ever taken.”
Obama will be specifically targeting power plants, forcing them cut carbon dioxide emissions by 32%. Discovery highlights some quotes from Obama's statement:
“Power plants are the single biggest source of harmful carbon pollution that contributes to climate change,” added Obama, who made the battle against climate change a core promise of his 2008 election campaign.
“But until now there have been no federal limits to the amount of that pollution that those plants can dump into the air.”
He added that without imposing limits, “existing power plants can still dump unlimited amounts of harmful carbon pollution into the air weekly.
“For the sake of our kids, for the health and safety of all Americans, that’s about to change.”
This is a good example of how the left tries to distort the language. "Carbon pollution" is really just carbon dioxide, which is what we exhale on a daily basis and what plants need as energy in order to undergo photosynthesis. It's not "pollution." But to a low-information voter, the term "carbon pollution" makes it sound like a harmful chemical, when it's not.
Here's the kicker: Obama claims that these new regulations will lower energy bills and will create renewable energy jobs. Because Solyndra and the numerous other green-energy companies worked out well, right?
And data shows that energy bills will in fact rise from these new regulations. The economic consulting firm NERA estimates that the regulations will cost $366 billion and energy bills will rise by double-digits in 43 states. In addition, the North America Electric Reliability Corporation estimates that the regulations will result in coal plants closing before any new ones can be built.
This is troubling given that over 40% of worldwide energy is produced from coal. If coal plants are closing well before new ones can be built, then the only logical conclusion is inevitable blackouts and brownouts.
Back in 2008, Obama told the SF Chronicle that electricity rates would "necessarily skyrocket":
And they are going to skyrocket- unnecessarily, as this is all over the phony issue of climate change.
The Obama administration will argue that there will be savings coming from renewable energy jobs. But the AP points out that this likely won't happen:
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.
Obama's EPA has been targeting coal for years, and the coal workers are suffering:
America’s coal miners are 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. Alpha Natural Resources Inc., once the second-largest U.S. coal producer, filed for bankruptcy Monday.
The dominant energy source since the Industrial Revolution, coal has seen its role reduced. Details emerging ahead of the release of President Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan on Monday show pressure to curb its use will only intensify over the next 15 years, escalating the industry’s fight for survival.
Which is completely in line with the degrowth movement. If you've never heard of the degrowth movement, here's how they describe themselves: (emphasis mine)
Sustainable degrowth is a downscaling of production and consumption that increases human well-being and enhances ecological conditions and equity on the planet. It calls for a future where societies live within their ecological means, with open, localized economies and resources more equally distributed through new forms of democratic institutions. Such societies will no longer have to “grow or die.” Material accumulation will no longer hold a prime position in the population’s cultural imaginary. The primacy of efficiency will be substituted by a focus on sufficiency, and innovation will no longer focus on technology for technology’s sake but will concentrate on new social and technical arrangements that will enable us to live convivially and frugally. Degrowth does not only challenge the centrality of GDP as an overarching policy objective but proposes a framework for transformation to a lower and sustainable level of production and consumption, a shrinking of the economic system to leave more space for human cooperation and ecosystems.
Radio host and constitutional scholar Mark Levin describes Obama's EPA as the "main federal governmental fortress" of the degrowth agenda:
Levin documents these observations, writing, “[I]n 2013, 2014 and 2015, the EPA released (or is planning to release) a series of regulations designed to destroy the coal industry and diminish the oil and gas industries.” One such regulation is the “New Source Performance Rule” (NSPS), which, as Levin explains “mandates that every newly constructed coal-burning power plant in the United States use a costly and unproven technology to reduce its carbon emissions. The cost of implementing this technology is so exorbitant it makes building most new, coal-burning power plants impracticable.”
Another is the “Existing Source Performance Rule” (ESPR) which, as Levin further explains, “sets preposterously high emission standards for power plants, including those that burn coal. The goal of this rule is to force current power plants that use carbon sources such as coal and natural gas to charge increasingly higher rates to consumers for power, eventually driving these energy companies out of business.”
Levin summarizes that these EPA rules would “institute by coercion major parts of the degrowth agenda through deindustrialization, drive up the cost of energy production and use, and ultimately drive down the quality of life and living standards of Americans.”
Which is exactly what these new regulations are going to do, it is simply another way to deindustrialize America.