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 …
Watch: Climatologist Dr. Roy Spencer on Gore’s ‘extreme weather’ claims: ‘Bullsh*t!’ – John Stossel’s “Science Wars”
…Climate Scientists Rip Apart EPA’s Global Warming Rule
The agency also justified the Clean Power Plan by claiming it would reduce asthma rates, which they say will be exacerbated by global warming. A White House fact sheet claims the rule will “avoid up to 3,600 premature deaths, lead to 90,000 fewer asthma attacks in children, and prevent 300,000 missed work and school days.”
But claims linking global warming and asthma rates are dicey. So far, there’s no strong link between increasing temperatures and asthma attacks. Cato scientists slammed EPA for making such claims.
“The public health arguments are even weaker,” Curry wrote. “CO2 has absolutely nothing to do with asthma. Extreme weather events are not increasing with increased CO2; extreme weather events are dominated by natural climate variability. Particularly in the U.S., extreme weather was substantially worse in the 1930’s and 1950’s.”
“Trying to sell this plan as economic and public health issue is a ploy to develop political will for President Obama’s preferred energy policies,” Curry wrote.
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2015/08/04/climate-scientists-rip-apart-epas-global-warming-rule/#ixzz3hwtdhQyj…