Shutdown of Texas coal plants will raise electricity rates, cost jobs, maybe lead to rolling blackouts

The radicalized Environmental Protection Agency's "trainwreck" of emissions rules, including the Cross-State Air Pollution regulation, will clobber us soon. The damage will be significant--20 percent of America's power-generating capacity could be taken off line soon. That means higher electricity rates and possible rolling blackouts. This is not the transformational change America wants. And it will mean fewer jobs.

The War on Prosperity continues.

Bill Hammond, the president and CEO of the Texas Association of Business, writes about the dark clouds over Texas in an op-ed for the San Antonio Express-News:

Remember the rolling blackouts during the extreme cold this winter? Are you ready for more of the same all summer long? Are you ready for job cuts? Are you ready for businesses to stop coming to Texas costing us new jobs? That's what is likely to happen if the Environmental Protection Agency does not reconsider including Texas in its cross-state air pollution rule.

We've heard the threats of rolling blackouts this summer because of hot temperatures and record power usage. If you take away a significant percentage of the state's capacity to produce electricity a threat becomes a reality and we start losing power on a regular basis.

The state will lose that capacity because the EPA's cross-state air pollution rule would force Texas lignite coal-fueled power plants to shut down or reduce output, eliminating perhaps as much as 10 percent of the state's capacity to produce electricity. The EPA figures that those plants could just import low-sulfur Wyoming coal. The EPA figures wrong. It would take a long time to convert and permit the necessary changes to those plants, and cost ratepayers a lot of money. Plus right now there is no excess production of coal in Wyoming to meet the additional demand and the impacts of getting that coal to Texas have not even been considered.

What happens to your bottom line? We will all pay higher electric rates. It's supply and demand. For businesses still trying to recover from some really bad economic times, that could mean layoffs. For those businesses looking to move to Texas from other states, this might just make them decide to stay put. Who wants to come to a state where the rates are high and the lights go out every time it gets hot? I wouldn't.

The war on Texas coal was discussed on Fox News' America Live a few days ago.



This is not just a Texas issue.

Related post:

Clean Air Transport Rule means fewer jobs, higher energy prices

Technorati tags: news texas texas politics epa energy Democrats oil economy green environment coal