Obama’s War on Coal Moves Forward; New EPA Regulations to Close Dozens of Coal Plants; Reduce U.S. Generating Capacity by 8%; Blackouts, Rolling Brownouts Likely – Video of Obama’s 2008 “Electricity will Skyrocket” Promise
President Barack Obama’s radical “Green Energy” agenda is about to cost Americans more jobs as his war on the Coal Industry moves forward. New EPA Regulations will force the closing of dozens of coal plants over the next several years, throwing tens of thousands of Americans out of work and causing electricity prices to skyrocket.
Here is just a partial list of the coal plants expected to close as a result of the new radical regulations. Nine plants are on the list to close in the states of West Virginia and Virginia alone.
As to the impact on the energy-generating capacity of the United States, the Wall Street Journal has the stark details:
WALL STREET JOURNAL: The EPA is currently pushing an unprecedented rewrite of air-pollution rules in an attempt to shut down a large portion of the coal-fired power fleet. Though these regulations are among the most expensive in the agency’s history, none were demanded by the late Pelosi Congress. They’re all the result of purely bureaucratic discretion under the Clean Air Act, last revised in 1990.
As it happens, those 1990 amendments contain an overlooked proviso that would let Mr. Obama overrule EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson’s agenda. With an executive order, he could exempt all power plants “from compliance with any standard or limitation” for two years, or even longer using rolling two-year periods. All he has to declare is “that the technology to implement such standard is not available and that it is in the national security interests of the United States to do so.”
Both criteria are easily met. Most important, the EPA’s regulatory cascade is a clear and present danger to the reliability and stability of the U.S. power system and grid. The spree affects plants that provide 40% of U.S. baseload capacity in the U.S., and almost half of U.S. net generation. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or FERC, which is charged with ensuring the integrity of the power supply, reported this month in a letter to the Senate that 81 gigawatts of generating capacity is “very likely” or “likely” to be subtracted by 2018 amid coal plant retirements and downgrades.
That’s about 8% of all U.S. generating capacity. Merely losing 56 gigawatts—a midrange scenario in line with FERC and industry estimates—is the equivalent of wiping out all power generation for Florida and Mississippi.
In practice, this will mean blackouts and rolling brownouts, as well as spiking rates for consumers. If a foreign power or terrorists wiped out 8% of U.S. capacity, such as through a cyber attack, it would rightly be considered an act of war. . . . Read More
I hope every person who voted for Barack Obama in 2008 understands that this is what they voted for when they bought Obama’s “Hope and Change” nonsense. Whether they realized it or not – this is what Obama has planned all along. He is a radical, with a radical Leftist agenda that couldn’t care less about what his Leftist ideology is doing to American jobs and the fabric of many communities. The video above is from 2008, when Obama told us all exactly what he planned to do that would cause electricity prices to “skyrocket.” The liberal media never reported this, as they were all drunk on Obama’s “Hope and Change” elixir. Enough Americans bought what Obama was selling, and ignored the reality of what he planned to do. Now, we will all reap the whirlwind as a result. Obama could stop the implementation of these new job-killing regulations, but he won’t because he believes in the destruction of the coal industry. Americans must vote him out of office and try to undo the disaster that is Barack Obama.
