The war on jobs and affordable energy is real and continues to pick up steam with a swarm of new regulations coming out of President Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency contributing to more mine closures and plant shutdowns across the country. Last week, we witnessed the latest round of victims in the war on coal, with Georgia Power Co. announcing its plans to shutter 15 fossil-fuel-fired electric units, impacting nearly 500 jobs in the state.
Georgia Power explained that the high cost of new EPA rules, including the rule setting maximum achievable control technology (known as Utility MACT) standards, was a contributing factor for the closures. Sadly, it is just one of several companies that have cited a hostile regulatory environment as a reason for layoffs in the past year. When Ohio American Energy Inc. announced it was shutting down mining operations in Brilliant, Ohio, the company’s news release cited “regulatory actions by President Barack Obama and his appointees” as the “entire reason” for the mine’s closure and layoffs, which will impact 240 workers. Alpha Natural Resources Inc. recently announced it would eliminate 1,200 jobs companywide as a result of mine closures in Virginia, West Virginia and Pennsylvania, stating the decision was due in part to “a regulatory environment that’s aggressively aimed at constraining the use of coal.”
The total number of announced plant retirements nationwide is already more than triple the amount the EPA had predicted would be caused by its regulations, and studies suggest more closures are imminent. The American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity reports that EPA regulatory policies already have contributed to the announced retirement of more than 250 coal-fired units, totaling more than 38,000 megawatts. The North American Electric Reliability Corp. recently issued its Long-Term Reliability Assessment, which showed that plants responsible for 20 percent of the nation’s coal-fired electricity generation may be lost by 2017...
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