EPA Chief admits: ‘I’m not disagreeing’ states with climate regs have ‘triple’ the electric rate
Pointing out the high costs of electricity in states that have implemented climate regulations similar to EPA’s proposed Clean Power Plan, Senator Bill Cassidy tells EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy, “states that emit the most carbon have the lowest energy costs [while those] that emit the least have the highest — in some cases triple…” Administrator McCarthy responds, “I guess I’m not disagreeing with your– the facts that you’ve outlined them just there.”
SENATOR CASSIDY: “In a previous conversation we’ve had, I’ve made the point that if the Clean Power Plant [sic] rule raises energy costs, that will put our economy at a economic disadvantage relative to countries overseas which frankly will continue to pollute or emit carbon. Now, we wanted to test this hypothesis, so we took all the states in the United States, and we looked at those which have the easiest compliance with the Clean Power Plant [sic] rule, i.e. they currently emit the less [sic], and those states that are going to have the hardest time, they emit the most. And, turns out there is kind of an inverse correlation with electricity costs. So, if you look at RGGI states for example, the Northeast, they have electricity costs that are three times higher than that for a state like Montana.”
ADMINISTRATOR MCCARTHY: “Mmmhmm (affirmative).”
SENATOR CASSIDY: “Now, I think I remember you saying, ‘No, it’s possible to lower emissions without raising the costs’, but I’ll just say it, baseline, these states which have the lowest emissions of carbon already have triple the cost of their electricity.”
[…]
SENATOR CASSIDY: “Empirically, though, it is true. Those states that emit the most carbon have the lowest energy costs. Those that emit the least have the highest — in some cases triple — and if input of your costs of energy is an input of your cost of production, intuitively companies are going to move where that cost is lower.”
ADMINISTRATOR MCCARTHY: “I guess I’m not disagreeing with your– the facts that you’ve outlined them just there. My disagreement may be with what would the impact of regulating greenhouse gas emissions have.”
Hearing to Review the FY17 Environmental Protection Agency Budget Request
Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies
Senate Appropriations Committee
April 20, 2016…
Feds Say Fracking Produces More Than Half Of US Oil
Feds Say Fracking Produces More Than Half Of US Oil
http://dailycaller.com/2016/03/15/feds-say-fracking-produces-more-than-half-of-us-oil/
2015 Oil production 80 percent higher than it was in 2008
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Obama Will Clamp Down On Fracking — To Reduce Global Warming 0.004 Degrees Celsius
…Trudeau, Obama unveil ‘immediate’ measures against fracking
…Hillary Clinton Wants To Basically Ban Fracking After Promoting It In Other Countries For Years
Hillary Wants To Basically Ban Fracking After Promoting It In Other Countries For Years
‘I do not think there will be many places in America where fracking will continue’
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Hollywood upset: Actor Mark Ruffalo: Obama ‘is almost worse than climate-change deniers’
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/mark-ruffalo-produce-documentary-challenging-843791
The Spotlight star, in the midst of kicking off an awards campaign, has signed on to narrate and executive produce the documentary Dear President Obama, a film about the administration’s energy and climate change policies due out next year. The movie’s director is Jon Bowermaster, who’s helmed films documenting his own eco-adventures for National Geographic and whose most recent project, After The Spill, focuses on post-Katrina Louisiana.…
Obama spurns natural gas in climate rule
President Obama’s love affair with natural gas is over.
The president once touted gas as an essential clean bridge fuel to wean the United States off dirtier fossil fuels and onto renewable energy, and it was seen as a key to his landmark climate change rule for power plants.
But when Obama unveiled the finalized rule this week, he barely spoke about natural gas. Instead, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) boasted that the new regulation will accommodate a large transition from coal power directly to renewables like wind and solar, skipping over natural gas altogether.…
Analysis: EPA ‘climate’ plan will take ‘33% of productive electrical capacity off the grid by 2020’
The president’s ‘Clean Power Plan’ is worse than you think
According to the American Legislative Exchange Council, President Obama’s “Clean Energy Plan” would take 33% of productive electrical capacity off the grid by 2020. And the Washington Free Beacon notes that another report shows that the plan would close 48% of all coal-fired plants in the country.
As the Wall Street Journal points out, this plan is “regulation without representation.” The president’s rules would usurp the traditional role of states in managing their own electrical generation and saddle the economy with enormous costs while empowering the EPA to control vast swaths of the American economy.
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Coal-fired power will be the first to be shot, but the EPA is targeting all sources of carbon energy. As coal plants have retired amid seven years of EPA assault, natural gas recently eclipsed coal as the dominant source of electric power. This cleaner-burning gas surge has led to the cheapest and fastest emissions plunge in history, but the EPA isn’t satisfied.
Thus the new rule’s central planning favors green energy sources like wind and solar. The plan expands their quotas and funding, while punishing states that are insufficiently enthusiastic. The EPA estimates renewables will make up 28% of U.S. electric capacity by 2030, up from less than 5% today.
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The White House and EPA know they are distorting the law beyond recognition and that this rule will be litigated for years. But they figure that if they can intimidate the states into enacting as much change as fast as possible, a legal defeat won’t matter because the outcome will be a fait accompli.
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Or, as the Journal points out, perhaps the governors can simply refuse to carry out the EPA’s diktats:
Meantime, states can help the resistance by refusing to participate. The Clean Air Act is a creature of cooperative federalism, and Governors have no obligation to craft a compliance plan. The feds will try to enforce a fallback, but they can’t commandeer the states, and they lack the money, personnel and bandwidth to overcome a broad boycott. Let’s see how much “clean power” the EPA really has.
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A rational person might ask, “What’s the rush?” Why 15 years instead of 30 or 40? The answer is, again, Obama’s “legacy.” He is willing to send the economy into the crapper in …
Report: Recession, Not Fracking, Drove a Drop in U.S. CO2 Emissions
In effect, more than half the carbon decline was due to a drastic drop in the volume of goods consumed by the U.S. population. Almost a third of the drop could be attributed to changes in production structure, including offshoring American industries to China and other countries. Only 17 percent could be attributed to changes in the mix of fuels used to generate energy, and that wasn’t due to the rise in fracking. The shale gas boom didn’t start until 2009, the researchers note. Before that, coal had already been on the decline.
Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/recession-not-fracking-drove-drop-us-carbon-emissions-180955972/#pi8yjtwZSO5OvPcz.99
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