Coal Regs Would Kill Jobs, Boost Energy Bills

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It is not just our direct uses of energy that rising costs and lowered supplies will negatively impact, it is also the *indirect* effects we should be concerned about as well.
Essentially everything we eat, wear, live in, drive, use in our personal lives and careers is a function of human effort, time and materials. Rising energy costs not only raise your electric and gas bills, but increase the cost of goods and services you buy as well.
So, expect Obama and the Democrat's policies to increase the costs and decrease supplies of essentially everything in our lives.
It will cost more to grow, process and transport food as doing so requires a lot of electricity, natural gas, diesel and other fuels.
The Internet at root *is* electricity. As electricity 'skyrockets' so will the cost of our Internet access. The same goes for phones as well.
I could go on and on and on and on....
Suffice it to say that everything will become more expensive and less available if President Obama and the Democrats/progressives have their way - and they know it.

DrDenan of CA 1:56PM June 09, 2011

Energy is *the* most fundamental element of the economy - it is the very foundation. If the price of energy is too high and/or the supply too low, the economy can not and will not grow and prosper. Period. That reality should be the starting point of any discussion of energy strategy or policy.
Based on his actions, President Obama does not seem to understand that simple truth about our nation. I don't think Obama is stupid or evil - I think he is naive and deluded. He is the prime example of the dangerous naivete that has developed amongst the political and academic elite over the past 40 years - the vast majority of whom are insulated from economic reality by their money, status, jobs, positions and strongly reinforced progressive beliefs.
President Obama believes that alternative forms of energy generation will emerge and lead the nation to sustainable prosperity if only they (the ruling intellectual elite) can force the energy market (you, me and everyone else who generates, distributes and uses energy) to adopt those alternatives through price and regulatory pressure.
The problem is that it won't work.
I'm the founder of a start up alternative energy company. I promise you that what our industry needs more than anything to grow and eventually bring the technologies that will help provide the nation with plentiful, inexpensive energy, is a vibrant, growing economy. The absolute last things we need - and what we now have - is a stagnant/declining economy and a government picking and choosing the energy technologies and companies who will 'win' the big government checks that go nowhere and accomplish nothing.
Our national plan should be to make prosperity *and* sustainability the driving goals of a long term energy strategy. That strategy, in short, is to develop and utilize (with the government getting out of the way for the most part) existing and new American coal, oil, natural gas and nuclear energy sources in the short to mid term to lower the costs of gas, natural gas, and electricity while also ensuring secure non-domestic supplies as well.
We should do these things responsibly, with a pragmatic, clear-eyed understanding that our primary goal is to deliver plentiful, inexpensive energy to fuel the current and mid-term economy that will then develop and deliver long-term, plentiful, inexpensive sustainable energy. Period.
President Obama, through naivete and shared progressive delusion is leading us into economic decline from which return, if even possible in our lifetimes, will be devastating to the non-elite people of this nation and will bring great harm to the economies and people of the rest of the world as well.

DrDenan of CA 1:47PM June 09, 2011

Kendall Svengalis: I agree with everything you said, EXCEPT that air quality is improving. It isn't. Americans are being "screened" from the sun; therefore the severe drop in Vit D of 90% of the public. There is a dramatic difference between a few parts of the U.S. where the skies are still blue vs. the "screened" gray Chemtrailed skies affecting the public's lungs and breathing.

Corky of DE 1:39PM June 09, 2011

The coal fired generating industry is going to get to the point where they are just going to shut the plants down. Without any way to replace the energy that they produce the economic disater that will follow will be tremendous.
Not only will it throw tens of thousands of workers out of their jobs, it is going to cripple industry and ordinary users into a turmoil. Many people will be left without electricity to heat their homes, run their refrigderators, cool thier homes in summer, and will end up without jobs because their jobs will go away when the companies that they work for have to close.
Many old people and people in poor health may die because they will not have the power to run thier heaters in the winter or air conditioners in the summer. Then the blame game will go on. The power companies will say that it is the fault of the regulators because they have made it so the companies can not even cover thier operating expenses and have had to shut down the plants. The polititians will say that the power companies are just trying to blame them because they did not want to make the needed upgrades.

Mike of OR 1:11PM June 09, 2011

All you people will wake up (I hope) when you want to read your newspaper, Walk into a room at night, Charge your Laptops, Charge your "Electric" cars, Turn on your AC, etc... and guess what... No POWER. Wake Up America, we have so many regulations that we are choaking the crap out of this country. Next think you know some Bozo will regulate how much saliva you can swallow.

Chappy of ME 1:10PM June 09, 2011

And we wonder why we are 9.1%+ unemployment.

cadolfan of CA 1:07PM June 09, 2011

I believe that the worst domestic terror group is the EPA. All those predator drones should be retargeted at the EPA offices.

BillC of WA 12:53PM June 09, 2011

When are we going to get a government by and for the people again. Right now we have a regime that is owned by the extreme environmentalists who couldn't care less about the basics of living, making a living or the Constitution. We either get rid of congressmen and presidents who hate the U.S.A. or we perish, having become a banana republic.

ArtH of OR 12:49PM June 09, 2011

Air quality has been improving steadily since the 1970s and will continue to improve. These new EPA regulations, however are not about improved air quality, but about control of CO2 emissions and the scientifically bankrupt global warming (or "climate change"). agenda. There is ZERO evidence that CO2 causes warming.
The EPA regulations are a gross overreach by the Executive Branch which was unable to sell its cap and tax legislation to Congress. Regulations are supposed to be promulgated pursuant to statute. But, in this case, there is no statute that justifies administrative control of carbon dioxide emissions. These regulations will significantly drive up energy costs for all Americans and cost the loss of thousands of jobs in a bad economy. Incidentally, carbon dioxide does not cause or exacerbate asthma. One has to separate pollution (e.g. particulates) from carbon dioxide, which is not pollution, but the stuff of life. That is a ruse to justify government control of our lives. Lisa Jackson is a radical "social justice" minion who Obama is nusing to advance his control agenda, as is Carole Browner, a member of the Socialist International. For an excellent article on the global warming scam, read Princeton physicist William Happer's excellent article in "First Things":
http://www.firstthings.com/article/2011/05/the-truth-about-greenhouse-gases

Kendall Svengalis of CT 12:35PM June 09, 2011

Notice the epa didnt mention the health aspects of when poor people start freezing to death because they cant pay their electric bills in winter if these artifically elevated bills are allowed.
Would EPA officials be liable for these deaths?
Or what happens when its a choice of heating a house or food on the table?
Epa talks health, but want us to use light bulbs with mercury in them.
Epa is just making it hard on people.

clifford from new mexico of NM 12:18PM June 09, 2011