New Rules On Power Plants Will Kill Coal Industry

The administration finally has released its rules for curbing CO2 emissions from U.S. power plants. Far from being a plan to clean up the environment, it is in fact a road map to de-industrialization and poverty. The tough new rules that will limit carbon dioxide output from new power plants immediately drew protests from the power industry. No surprise. But if Americans really understood what Obama is doing, they'd be up in arms, too. Far from being an economically sensible plan to reduce U.S. pollution, this proposal will sharply raise the cost of energy to all Americans, while doing little to improve our environment. Last year, the Institute for Energy Research estimated that the administration's "regulatory assault" on power plants would eliminate 35 gigawatts of electrical generating capacity — or 10% of all U.S. power. The new EPA rules will make that even worse. If you wonder why Obama has the worst jobs record of any president in modern history, look no further. "We know this is not just about melting glaciers," said Environmental Protection Agency chief Gina McCarthy in announcing the rules Friday. She linked climate change to a host of spurious public health threats. Yet just one day earlier, appearing before a congressional committee, McCarthy admitted that even though the EPA already has extensive rules in place to curb greenhouse-gas emissions, she had no evidence that they had done anything to halt global warming. This is a stunning admission that these regulations aren't about climate change at all, but rather part of an ideologically driven fight to tear the capitalist heart out of western civilization — plentiful energy, source of our highest-ever standard of living...more