Obama's new attack on coal is cold-blooded

Coal barge, Guttenberg, Iowa

The Obama administration's war on fossil fuels has many fronts--such as the perpetually-stalled Keystone XL pipeline and coal. And it has side-fronts, such as the New Source Performance Standard. As is the wont of this White House, this battle began with a flanking maneuver around Congress by the radicalized Environmental Protection Agency.

It's easy to understand why the administration did so. The New Source Performance Standard, as the behind-a-pay-wall Environment & Energy explains that these new EPA regulations punishes coal:

When [the] U.S. EPA proposes a rule regulating carbon dioxide emissions from new power plants this month, environmentalists hope it ensures that new coal-fired generators will come equipped with technologies for capturing and storing carbon.

But industry advocates say a one-size-fits-all standard would ignore EPA's past practice of crafting New Source Performance Standards specific to fuel types. That, they say, could hurt fuel diversity and leave ratepayers vulnerable to price fluctuations.

Let me phrase it more bluntly: Your electric bill will go up. And not just yours, businesses will pay more for energy, which would hinder job creation.

More:

[The] EPA sent its proposed rule for new and modified electric utilities to the Office of Management and Budget in November for a final review, and the agency says it expects to release the proposed rule this month.

[The] EPA is also required to propose rules for existing power plants and for refineries under the terms of two legal settlements reached with environmentalists and states in 2010, but the agency has missed court-ordered deadlines for those rules.

E&E goes on to explain that the EPA is six months behind in implementing this regulation, but it notes that the president's environmentalist supporters are hopeful that the EPA bureaucrats are utilizing this extra time to sharpen their knives so it can better attack the coal industry.

As I noted last week, the departure of William Daley as White House chief-of-staff removes a counterweight to the far-left devotees, such as EPA head Lisa Jackson, that dominate the Obama administration. Think along the lines of the original Star Trek--with Daley as Dr. McCoy pointing out the human side of decisions made by the cold-blooded Mr. Spock.

Only Jackson isn't as smart as the Vulcan officer.

Related post:

Team of leftists: William Daley out as chief of staff

Technorati tags: Democrats politics Obama Barack Obama coal environment energy epa