Guest post by Alec Rawls
NERC (the North American Electric Reliability Corporation) must have thought it was taking a step up when a 2005 law made the non-profit group an official advisor to Congress, but that law also brought them under the oversight of FERC (the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission) which just spent months of rummaging through every desk looking for rule violations they could use to embroil NERC in legal difficulties.
It seems that the President’s drive to shut down the coal-fired half of the grid could pose some risk to grid reliability—who’d a thunk it?—so Obama is trying to shoot the messenger. When no violations were found, FERC decided to “audit” NERC’s mission itself, resulting in a finding that this business of “periodic reliability assessments” is all a bit much and “should be revisited.”
From the editors of The Wall Street Journal:
This highly respected nonprofit has monitored the power system since the 1960s and establishes best practices to keep the lights on. … NERC’s position is that the EPA goal of mothballing many or most coal-fired power plants could endanger the security of the electric-power grid, with possible blackouts and much higher energy costs. In a follow-up report last year it found that “Environmental regulations are shown to be the number one risk to reliability over the next one to five years.”
In violation of FERC rules, Chairman Jon Wellinghoff ordered the NERC investigation on his own authority, and the investigation itself was overtly political:
[T]his probe exceeded normal auditing standards and was a free-floating investigation into NERC’s “economy and efficiency,” whatever that means. It didn’t find any rule-breaking.
Instead, the auditors question NERC’s focus and statutory responsibilities, concluding that it “may have exceeded the functions” Congress intended for a reliability organization. Never mind that NERC has been doing the same job for decades and its integrity hasn’t been questioned. The feds also complain about NERC’s “periodic reliability assessments,” otherwise considered the gold standard. They say this role “should be revisited.”
In other words, the energy G-men think NERC should help protect reliability without studying the actual threats to reliability.
The perils of shutting down the nation’s largest electricity source can’t be news to the Obama people. They just don’t want the public to get the message.
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Sort of makes one think Obama is taking the first steps towards DE-industrialization of our economy. Is this his great leap forward?
Thanks
JK
Classic Obama. If an organization does a good job, well then, put a stop to it. This is what an incompetent dufus does when he’s been promoted to his level of incompetence. Rest assured, Barry’s been promoted waaaay, waaaaay, waaaaaaaay past his level of incompetence. So, of course, he’s gotta insure that any organization is made to perform even more incompetently than he does. Fortunately, that’s not possible.
I expect the White House has backup generators and don’t really care much what happens to the average folks in the street. If the power goes of and the air conditioning fails and a bunch of old folks croak so much the better, This will convince everyone we need to put a tax on everything to solve the problems. Most of all we need to tax poverty. Just like carbon, this will drive poverty out of existence.
Is this an obomination?
Obama is a freind of PM gillard she is doing the same in Australia A $23 per ton carbon tax on coal fired power stations in Australia starting date 1/7/2012 .WE all have to stop this tax before it is too late
Well there is one thing to say about this…it is one of the few times the Obama administration has been completely transparent. If this isn’t transparent political shenanigans, I don’t know what is!
As the Obama proclaimed a few months back in regards to the failed Cap&Trade bill, “it’s a means not an end. There’s more than one way to skin this cat.” The cat is being skinned. Anyone know what the price of whale oil is these days?
Good report, Alec. The EPA is going to undergo some serious structural changes after the next election. Of course, there needs to be serious structural changes in the office of the presidency first. :>)
Werner Brozek says:
May 22, 2012 at 7:05 pm
Is this an obomination?
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I like it.
Owen in Ga,
The media is not reporting any of this; eyes wide shut. A large if not majority sector of the public doesn’t have a clue what Obama has done and is planning to do. If he is re-elected, it is game over. He’s already stated Congress is irrelevant and per Cass Sunstein it is a simple matter of bypassing the Congress by using executive decrees and regulatory measures.
Obama will go down in history as the equivalent of Sherman’s March; the scorched earth policy.
Our POTUS is not stupid. He’s is ideological. He is trying to do everything he promised during the ’08 campaign. Go back and watch his old speeches. He truly believes the US Constitution failed us when it did not include what the government should or must do ‘for’ the people. That all the wealth should be spread around. That life isn’t fair and the government should change that.
He believes in much of the ‘socialist doctrine.’ He a big government guy.
This is a war between a strong and recovering US and the left’s utopian vision, we can’t let this wrecking crew get away with it. OBUMAISM is out to destroy every vestige of whats good for the US, by destroying any chance of recovery. OBUMAISM is the face of the enemy within!
Don’t you hear about such political shenanigans from the 1870s or earlier, from Mark Twain? Processes that “work” never stop, I guess.
What power and profit want, will be had. The justifications come later. If then.
Related: more news on enormous increases in the price of electricity, because of Obama’s war on coal.
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/05/22/obamas-war-on-coal-hits-your-electric-bill/
Is Obama all there mentally? He comes across as a bit dim-witted.
Obama talks the talk but when it comes to action he is clueless.
His epitaph could look a lot like John Wilmot’s assessment of Charles II:
” Here lies our sovereign lord the King,
Whose word no man relies on.
He never said a foolish thing,
Nor ever did a wise one.”
Ted says:
May 22, 2012 at 7:58 pm
“This is a war between a strong and recovering US and the left’s utopian vision, we can’t let this wrecking crew get away with it. ”
You’re not recovering. You’re inflating the US bond bubble, for the time being.
Robin Kool,
You beat me to it. Our electric bill here in Michigan has risen dramatically the past year.
Tom J. above implies that Obama is an incompetent dufus. Wrong! Obama’s actions are deliberate and well calculated. He resents Americans’ first-world standard of living and the democratic capitalist system that has make us the envy of the world. He INTENDS to downgrade and humiliate our free society. He is a racist and a Marxist, and is deliberately pursuing polices of bankruptcy and chaos in the streets. A breakdown of our energy grid is a part of that agenda! The corrupt national press that hides these things from the public is more dangerous than Obama himself. Perhaps the time is upon us when the Tree of Liberty must be refreshed!
Last week PJM Interconnection, the company that operates the electric grid for 13 states (Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia and the District of Columbia) held its 2015 capacity auction. These are the first real, market prices that take Obama’s most recent anti-coal regulations into account, and they prove that he is keeping his 2008 campaign promise to make electricity prices “necessarily skyrocket.”
The market-clearing price for new 2015 capacity – almost all natural gas – was $136 per megawatt. That’s eight times higher than the price for 2012, which was just $16 per megawatt. In the mid-Atlantic area covering New Jersey, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and DC the new price is $167 per megawatt. For the northern Ohio territory served by FirstEnergy, the price is a shocking $357 per megawatt.
Why the massive price increases? Andy Ott from PJM stated the obvious: “Capacity prices were higher than last year’s because of retirements of existing coal-fired generation resulting largely from environmental regulations which go into effect in 2015.” Northern Ohio is suffering from more forced coal-plant retirements than the rest of the region, hence the even higher price.
These are not computer models or projections or estimates. These are the actual prices that electric distributors have agreed to pay for new capacity. The costs will be passed on to consumers at the retail level.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/05/22/obamas-war-on-coal-hits-your-electric-bill/print#ixzz1vf2g9Pca
Tim Minchin says:
May 22, 2012 at 8:12 pm
Is Obama all there mentally? He comes across as a bit dim-witted.
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Right, but his handlers know he’ll do what they say…… even if they have to feed it to him through a teleprompter.
I’d like to take a moment to reflect on a bunch of pinheads who frequent here. Every time someone mentions politics they like to jump and harp that this is about science and that politics shouldn’t be brought up. Well, we see how vacant that was. Thanks to all of them who contributed such a weak and garbled message to the public that we have to endure this nonsense. Dolts.
“2016” – The Must See Movie Coming This Summer
The fact that this is coming from Hollywood insiders says a lot.
The speaker here is Dinesh D’Souza, a college president in New York and an author of many New York Times best sellers.
The movie is from Gerald R. Molen, producer of Academy Award winning Schindler’s List, Jurassic Park, Brave Heart…..
It explains in plain language who Barack Obama really is, what he stands for, and the dangers of him being re-elected for another four years.
Watch the preview of this movie:
http://www.youtube.com/v/Z6QOs…
After you see the preview, listen to what Dinesh has to say about Obama.
The president of the United States is an enemy of the United States.
Left wing, blah, blah; socialism blah blah. . Obama’s crew is both in the pocket of cap and trade wall street AND Nat gas and nuke industries. Industries use the government to gain competitive advantage against each other, they just have to sell it like something else. Nothing new. Less coal energy available, nat gas and nuke juice comes more in demand, increased profits. That’s business. Follow the Money. Who profits by the actions?
Well, in the ‘Bama’s view, the only position greater than he has would be ruling the entire world. The closest thing is UN Secretary General. Well it would be, if the US wasn’t so dominant. So rack up the debt, wreck the energy infrastructure, get Americans to accept they ain’t that great after all, no better than anyone else in the world actually, and what they get in life is what the government provides so demand the government gives you everything possible (that other people will pay for). Government alone is the source of all blessings, don’t you know.
Heck, the EU is looking strong too. So convince them to “take the lead” in trashing their energy infrastructure, to bail out that which should be allowed to go bankrupt, reject austerity measures that can save wealth and rebuild economies in favor of shoveling out made-up money for “stimulus” spending.
And just in case the US and EU should start getting uppity and forget their proper place, let enemy nations grow stronger and encourage some more to arise, work on permanently destabilizing the Middle East for oil price uncertainty, and develop a strong competitor on all fronts (political, economic, and militarily) by not complaining about China, let them do whatever they want with their own peasants (who aren’t necessarily people with rights) and around the world, even give them a direct lending line to the US Treasury, a “privilege” no other central bank has, so it doesn’t have to be revealed just how far the US is in debt to the Chinese government (and how much further it’s getting).
Yup, that should get him some support from those who otherwise wouldn’t want the former head of the “hated aggressor” from ruling the UN and the world. Good job, Barry.