The Affordable Power Alliance petitions EPA to perform an Environmental Justice (EJ) Analysis Examining increased Electricity Prices and Job Losses Under Power Plant Rules

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Wolf Blitzer (CNN) published August 04, 2011

It’s hard to believe, but one in seven Americans – 15% of the country – now need government-provided food stamps simply to survive.

Paul Driessen published July 31, 2011

Carbon capture and storage could ensure abundant electricity from coal, while cutting the CO2 emissions “responsible for climate change.” Yet, barely two years after “a sense of determination and common cause” inspired the Obama Energy Department to launch CCS projects, industry is “pulling the plug.”

This kind of “environmental justice” we can do without
Niger Innis and Bishop Harry Jackson, Jr. published August 01, 2011

From New York, Washington and Atlanta to Chicago, St. Louis and Dallas, America is baking in a furnace. As millions swelter and gasp, they thank their lucky stars for air-conditioned cars, homes, offices and other places of refuge. And for the reliable, affordable electricity that makes AC possible.

Detroit News Editorial published June 23, 2011

The Environmental Protection Agency's crusade against coal-fired power plants is on a fast track to raise electricity bills in Michigan by as much as 20 percent and restrict the state's economic growth.

The latest attack on America's economy by the EPA is tough new requirements on mercury and other emissions at coal plants that the agency hopes to have in place by the end of the year. Utility companies would have just three years to comply with the new standards or shut down the offending plants.

House Democratic group asks to extend comment period
By Steven Johnson | ECT Staff Writer -  Published: June 14th, 2011 
 
Congressional pressure is mounting on the Environmental Protection Agency to provide more time for public input on a sweeping rule that would regulate mercury emissions from power plants.

Led by Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., the former chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, 27 House Democrats fired off a letter June 10 to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, seeking another 60 days for public comments.

The current comment period ends July 5, but the lawmakers said the regulations would carry a significant economic cost, especially for coal-based generators.

The Washington Examiner nailed the issue with a magnificent editorial by Editorial Page Editor Mark Tapscott:
Editorial

American Electric Power Chairman Michael Morris announced last week that his company would be forced to close five coal-fired power plants, spend an additional $8 billion refitting other plants, and lose 6,000 megawatts of its coal-generated capacity if the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency follows through with its latest proposed regulation of coal power plants. That's just fine with President Obama and Lisa Jackson, whom he appointed as EPA administrator. Their goal is to put people like Morris and utilities like AEP out of the coal-fired generation business.
 
Since the White House's signature environmental policy, cap and trade, died in the Democrat-dominated 111th Congress in 2010, Obama has sought to use the Clean Air Act to do by bureaucratic decree what he could not achieve through the legislative process: force Americans to stop using fossil fuels to generate the energy that our society must have to function on a daily basis. The EPA's Mercury and Air Toxics Standards rule for power plants will take giant steps toward doing exactly that.

The Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works posted a powerful article from the Wall Street Journal for all the world to see:

Coal is from Earth, Lisa Jackson is from mercury
Editorial

President Obama's jobs council will make its first recommendations today on lifting hiring and strengthening the economy. Too bad the message doesn't seem to be reaching the Administration's regulators, in particular the Environmental Protection Agency.

The EPA is currently conducting a campaign against coal-fired power and one of its most destructive weapons is a pending regulation to limit mercury and other hazardous air pollutants like dioxins or acid gases that power plants emit. The 946-page rule mandates that utilities install "maximum achievable control technology" under the Clean Air Act-and even by the EPA's lowball estimates, it is the most expensive rule in the agency's history.

by Gabriel Nelson

A labor union that is usually a stalwart supporter of the Obama administration is asking Congress to delay U.S. EPA's new rules on toxic air pollution from coal-fired power plants, saying jobs will be lost if utilities don't get more time.

The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers said that it is backing American Eletric Power Co. Inc. (AEP) as it lobbies Congress to give utilities an extra five or six years to clean up or shut down their oldest coal plants.

The Union story went viral on blogs nationwide. Here's RS Redstate's take:
by LaborUnionReport 

The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) said it believes a three-year timeframe for reducing emissions of carbon, mercury and other pollutants through the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed Mercury and Air Toxics Standard is not realistic. The union is backing a bill calling for Congress to delay new rules on emissions from coal-fired power plants.

The union said 50,000 jobs are at stake if power plants cannot get an extra five or six years to either clean up or shut down their oldest coal-fired power plants. Under the Clean Air Act, plants get three years with a possible one-year extension after that to install emissions control equipment.

The Canada Free Press entered the fray with this provocative report with the subhead:
"Slam the coal industry so hard that hundreds of thousands of jobs will be lost"
By Warner Todd Huston

Half of America’s energy comes from coal-fired power plants but Obama’s new EPA rules would about destroy the coal industry driving our energy costs through the roof. That’s not all they would do, either.

The Canada Free Press entered the fray with this provocative report with the subhead:
"Slam the coal industry so hard that hundreds of thousands of jobs will be lost"
By Warner Todd Huston

Half of America’s energy comes from coal-fired power plants but Obama’s new EPA rules would about destroy the coal industry driving our energy costs through the roof. That’s not all they would do, either.

Telling the story, US News and World Report draws a horrifying picture:
By Paul Bedard

Two new EPA pollution regulations will slam the coal industry so hard that hundreds of thousands of jobs will be lost, and electric rates will skyrocket 11 percent to over 23 percent, according to a new study based on government data.

Read the economic report

Another horrifying picture comes from an Investors Business Daily article: 
By: Paul Driessen and Willie Soon

If Federal Register notices, press releases and activist campaigns assured progress, the Environmental Protection Agency's rules for 84 power plant pollutants would usher in vastly improved environmental quality and human health.

Unfortunately, the opposite is likelier.

One of the first warnings of the EPA's War on Jobs came from a Wall Street Journal article:
By: Paul Driessen and Willie Soon

The Environmental Protection Agency recently issued 946 pages of new rules requiring that U.S. power plants sharply reduce their (already low) emissions of mercury and other air pollutants. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson claims that while the regulations will cost electricity producers $10.9 billion annually, they will save 17,000 lives and generate up to $140 billion in health benefits.

There is no factual basis for these assertions.

U.S. Senator Richard Burr (R-North Carolina) has introduced a bill that would consolidate the Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency into a single, new agency called the Department of Energy and the Environment (DOEE). The bill would provide cost savings by combining duplicative functions while improving the administration of energy and environmental policies by ensuring a coordinated approach.

“The amount of money wasted annually on duplicative programs within the federal government is staggering,” Senator Burr said.  “This common-sense approach will reduce duplicative and wasteful functions across these two agencies and streamline our approach to a comprehensive, coordinated energy and environmental policy.”

African-American, Hispanic and faith-based leaders of the national Affordable Power Alliance will be in Colorado on Wednesday and Thursday, April 14 & 15, to speak at the Tax Day Tea Party Rally at the Colorado Capitol and to discuss a new study that shows why higher energy prices constitute a "war on the poor" because of their discriminatory impact on low-income and minority citizens.

A group calling itself the Affordable Power Alliance will release a report today saying greenhouse gas regulations would disproportionately harm minorities

The Affordable Power Alliance will unveil on Tuesday, March 30, the findings of a new study detailing how the EPA's upcoming greenhouse gas regulations will hurt middle-income families and the working poor the hardest.

The fact that tens of millions of Africans still do now have access to electricity means that sickness, poverty, higher infant mortality rates and shorter life spans will plague Africa many years to come, unless the global community helps to build baseload power plants in Africa using advanced coal and other fuels, a leader of the Affordable Power Alliance said today.