#ActOnClimate? Obama to announce more regulatory overreach
Get ready for another EPA boondoggle
Today President Obama will announce a new set of regulations aimed at salvaging his legacy as a progressive visionary cutting carbon emissions from US power plants and pushing the country toward a focus on renewable energy.
The plan is a tweaked—and much stricter—version of the Clean Power Plan, which was unveiled last year. More from WaPo:
The new plan sets a goal of cutting carbon pollution from power plants by 32 percent by the year 2030, compared with 2005 levels — a 9 percent jump from the previous target of 30 percent — while rewarding states and utility companies that move quickly to expand their investment in solar and wind power.
Many states will face tougher requirements for lowering greenhouse-gas emissions under the revised plan. But state governments also will be given more time to meet their targets and considerably more flexibility in how they achieve their pollution-cutting goals, according to two senior officials knowledgeable about the rule. For the first time, the officials said, the plan also includes a “reliability safety valve” that can buy states additional time if needed to avoid disruptions in the power supply.
The White House kicked off its #ActOnClimate social media campaign promoting the new regulations this Saturday—and their video push looks pretty slick:
BREAKING: On Monday, President Obama will release the final version of America's Clean Power Plan—the biggest, most important step we've ever taken to combat climate change. If you agree that we can't condemn our kids and grandkids to a planet that's beyond fixing, share this video with your friends and family. It's time to #ActOnClimate.
Posted by The White House on Saturday, August 1, 2015
I hate it when the Democrats make approachable, pretty presentations to make the case for big government lunacy.
The Administration’s push for more regulations won’t stop with its digital campaign. Obama is set to travel to various locations—including the Alaskan arctic—for a series of policy speeches, and in December is expected to propose an international treaty addressing carbon emissions. He will also meet with Pope Francis during the Pope’s September visit.
Republicans in Congress aren’t taking this lying down. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is spearheading a campaign to encourage state-level mutiny; attorneys general in 12 states are already preparing lawsuits, and at least 25 states are expected to get involved in legal challenges that will eventually end up before the Supreme Court.
More from the New York Times [emphasis mine]:
Leading the legal charge are states like Wyoming and West Virginia with economies that depend heavily on coal mining or cheap coal-fired electricity. Emissions from coal-fired power plants are the nation’s single largest source of carbon pollution, and lawmakers who oppose the rules have denounced them as a “war on coal.”
“Once the E.P.A. finalizes this regulation, West Virginia will go to court, and we will challenge it,” Patrick Morrisey, the attorney general of West Virginia, said in an interview with a radio station in the state on Friday. “We think this regulation is terrible for the consumers of the state of West Virginia. It’s going to lead to reduced jobs, higher electricity rates, and really will put stress on the reliability of the power grid. The worst part of this proposal is that it’s flatly illegal under the Clean Air Act and the Constitution, and we intend to challenge it vigorously.”
Although Obama administration officials have repeatedly said states will have flexibility to design their own plans, the final rules are explicitly meant to encourage the use of interstate cap-and-trade systems, in which states place a cap on carbon pollution and then create a market for buying permits or credits to pollute. The idea is that forcing companies to pay to pollute will drive them to cleaner sources of energy.
“Encourage” is key for “incentivize,” so look for the Administration to tie other, more politically-palatable trickle-down policy initiatives to this new plan.
Will the Obama Administration even acknowledge the existence of studies suggesting that climate change hysteria is beyond unnecessary? I think “no” is a safe bet.
We’ll keep you updated on this new policy push as it is rolled out.
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Comments
One day not too long from now, the price of electricity will skyrocket, which Obama’s minions will applaud. However, shortly after that they’ll also scream that they can no longer afford their “Green” Prius or Tesla.
Also, Starbucks will then start charging $$$ to use its electricity to charge their battery operated devices; maybe big bucks weeks / months later.
What was that saying that Obama’s favorite Preacher used to say, after 9/11, about the US? Oops, which saying, there were so many?
Renewable energy initiative in Germany are driving electricity costs up 300%. Manufacturing is leaving Germany. Soon, there will not be a steel mill in the country.
Many of those manufacturers were coming to the USA. Now, they wont.
Yeah. They WILL.
See, in the US, you can locate a plant in an oil/gas field and drill “self-help” wells that you can then use to provide fuel for your plant.
You can’t do that in most of Europe.
The process of siting a plant and relocating takes time and planning. I suspect that many of these companies will draft plans to come here but put them on hold until the outcome of the 2016 presidential election comes in. If Hillary or other Democrat candidate becomes president, they most likely would shelve those plans and go elsewhere. Much will be at stake in the November 2016 election, not just which candidate wins but our economic future. Quick repeal by the next president of all of Obama’s executive orders and policy changes should be the very first order of business for a new president. That which was decreed with the stroke of a pen can be reversed then by the stroke of a pen. It must be.
What you wrote is accurate and makes sense. However, it is not beyond possibility that some court, many courts now, could find that some executive order created some “right” now vested in some group of people, which “right” cannot be taken away by mere executive order. I wish it weren’t so, but it is.
RE: “What was that saying that Obama’s favorite Preacher used to say, after 9/11, about the US?”
Too bad he wasn’t saying “If you like your Obama, you can keep your Obama” because we all know now how that lie would have played out!
“Republicans in Congress aren’t taking this lying down” – umm, yes they are. They made their bed when they passed Cromnibus last year and have been lounging in it ever since. The majority “leader” is just trying to get someone else to do the job he’s supposed to do.
Republicans in Congress aren’t taking this lying down.
No, they’ll just be relaxing in their favorite rocking chair, over in the corner.
Obama’s War on the Working Poor.
He took away their cars by destroying all the clunkers.
He drove up the price of gas.
He took away their 40 hour jobs.
And now…
Obama is taking away Air Conditioning from the working poor.
In addition to the obvious direct assualt on the USA by the President, this also works as another “flood the zone” distraction. So, what else is he trying to do right now that he wants under the radar? What does he want the MSM (democrat operatives/fake journalists) to NOT talk about?
The Washington Cartel RINOs will offer no resistance — only words for their benighted voters to consume.
Only in America could we label CO2, the most important plant food know, as a pollutant. Perhaps Washington will soon outlaw breathing to help justify a decreased need for oxygen and eating to justify the decreased need for food.
The left will tell any lie, abuse any authority … to help destroy the freedoms capitalism has brought to the western world.
Clean coal is already at hand … the cleanest part of coal is all the CO2 it gives us as life giving fertilizer, which is greening up America and arid parts of the world as we speak.
A state like Illinois might go Republican if a President Walker would reverse the Obama/EPA kneecapping of the coal industry. We have perhaps the largest reserves. It would help him in PA and OH as well.
http://teachcoal.org/coal-reserves-in-the-united-states-map
and we have a third of the world’s coal right here
http://www.managementcanvas.iimindore.in/icanvas/images/stories/Other-Areas/strategy_coal.jpg
Thank God for the miracle working, capitalist engineering geniuses that gave us fracking. Without them Obama would be much closer to his goal of transforming US into a socialist third world hell hole.
RE: “The left will tell any lie….”
’nuff said!
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is spearheading a campaign to encourage state-level mutiny…
Heaven forbid-, er, Darwin forbid that McConnell actually try to stop this himself!
What’s funny…
building the number of solar panels envisioned by Barracula and Hellary would be…
1. enormously polluting, and
2. likely impossible.
Rare earth is…well, rare. And solar panels as we know them require rare earth compounds to produce.
Republicans in Congress aren’t taking this lying down.
I see I’m not the first to notice that this may be true … but only on some other planet.
Notice how many things Obama is decreeing that don’t take place until after his term of office is over, about 17 months from now. Notice that these things are not being done by statute law because Congress won’t pass them even if it can’t stop them from being decreed. Keep in mind that these post-Obama requirements can therefore be reversed without legislation if the country elects a Republican president in 2016. Meanwhile, law suits will be filed, injunctions sought, and every delay likely utilized. When will this president realize that after Jan. 20, 2017, his power will have ended?
His influence endures because the power he destroys won’t be coming back after he leaves office. That’s all that matters to him.
I say make Air Force One one giant solar panel and no longer power it with fossil fuel.
The WH should set the example.
Are these the same EPA rules Prof. Lawrence Tribe came out against a few months back is this something different?
We won’t make it past another year and a half of this lunatic with Boehner!, McConnell! and Prebus! heading the opposition party – OUR party.
Send those three backstabbing bums off to the trash-heap of shameful history, get some real men and women in there, and stop the destruction of our country. (No Jebs! need apply.)
Meh. Green energy is vastly superior to black energy, but black energy DOES have a 100+ year engineering head start.
If black energy is SO good & healthy & great, then the black energy BSD 1%er MBA CEO Managers *and their families* should be required to live 365 days & nights per year smack dab in the downwind from their plants. (With modern IT technology, there’s no need for BSD 1%er MBA CEO Managers to go jet-setting around “having meetings.”)
They live in the same world they benefit by the safe, clean and CHEAP energy they USED to be allowed to provide, moron.
Now, when Barracula shoots his NEXT round of golf after riding his bicycle to the links, get back with us.
Ya moron.