Guest opinion by Steve Goreham
Originally published in Communities Digital News.
Last June, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed its Clean Power Plan as a nationwide regulation to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from electrical power plants. Comments to the EPA have now been submitted, and it’s not a surprise that a majority of state governments oppose the plan. In the best interests of US citizens, states should refuse to comply with the proposed EPA Clean Power Plan.
The Clean Power Plan (CPP), more formally named the §111(d) rule, Carbon Pollution Emission Guidelines for Existing Stationary Sources, calls for a 30 percent reduction in power plant emissions by the year 2030. The CPP sets specific CO2 reduction targets for each state, based on four building blocks: 1) improved efficiency of coal-fired power plants, 2) increased use of combined cycle natural gas power plants, 3) increased use of renewable and nuclear energy, and 4) increased energy efficiency by consumers and businesses. But the main thrust of the proposal is the shut-down and replacement of coal-fired power plants, which now provide about 40 percent of US electricity.
There are three major strikes against the Clean Power Plan. First, the authority assumed by the CPP is not granted to the EPA by the laws of the United States. Second, efforts to try to implement the CPP will degrade the finest electrical system in the world, hurting consumers and businesses. Third, if implemented, the CPP will not have a measurable effect on global warming.
The Clean Air Act of 1970 authorized the establishment of state and federal regulations to control air pollution, and established the EPA to implement requirements of the act. The Clean Air Act and its amendments of 1977 and 1990 authorize the EPA to establish national ambient pollution standards and to control pollution levels from individual facilities, but not to regulate state electricity markets. A September 2014 letter from 15 state governors stated that the EPA’s Clean Power Plan proposal, “not only exceeds the scope of federal law, but also, in some cases, directly conflicts with established state law.”
State electrical public service commissioners are tasked with providing reliable, low-cost electricity for the citizens of their state, while meeting environmental standards. Commissioners trade off the costs and benefits of hydrocarbon, nuclear, and renewable power sources, and they plan new power plants, electrical transmission lines, natural gas pipelines, and other facilities. CPP restrictions threaten to inflate the price and seriously degrade the reliability of US electricity for negligible environmental benefits.
The State of Indiana requested that EPA withdraw the CPP proposal, predicting an electricity price increase of more than 60 percent due to EPA regulations. The State of Arizona commented that the CPP is “not technically feasible” and will “seriously undermine the reliability of electric service.” The Public Utility Commission of Texas also urged the EPA to withdraw the rule, estimating compliance costs at over $20 billion and that Texas electricity prices would rise by more than 20 percent by 2020. NERA Economic Consulting estimated a consumer cost of up to $479 billion by 2031, or about $1,500 for each man, woman, and child in the US.
Some states have shown support for the Clean Power Plan, led by California and New York. Both states appear to be in a race to achieve the highest residential electricity rates in the lower 48 states. In 2013, California citizens paid 16.19 cents per kilowatt-hour, but New York was number one at a whopping 18.79 cents per kW-hr, well over the US average of 12.12 cents per kW-hr. Paradoxically, New York recently banned hydraulic fracturing of natural gas, a fuel that the CPP heavily promotes.
However, the Clean Power Plan, if implemented, will provide negligible environmental benefits. Evidence is growing that natural cycles of Earth, such as ocean currents driven by the sun, dominate global temperatures and that human influences are small. Today’s storms, droughts, floods, and surface temperatures are neither extreme nor abnormal by historical standards.
EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy has admitted in Congressional testimony that the effects of the CPP and other EPA regulations will not be visible in the more than 25 indicators of climate change on the EPA website. Yet the EPA continues to push regulations based on the ideology of human-caused global warming. Hundreds of billions in consumer cost and degraded electrical reliability appear to be only a small price to pay for an unmeasurable change in global temperatures.
In the best interest of citizens, states should defy the EPA’s proposed Clean Power Plan.
Steve Goreham is Executive Director of the Climate Science Coalition of America and author of the book The Mad, Mad, Mad World of Climatism: Mankind and Climate Change Mania
Goreham said: “First, the authority assumed by the CPP is not granted to the EPA by the laws of the United States.”
Actually, it is. A case went to the US Supreme Court, who ruled last year that the EPA can regulate CO2.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/supreme-court-reins-in-some-of-epas-greenhouse-gas-efforts-1403534416
I think in a court of law, you could prove that CO2 is not pollution! That’s one of their major points.
imho You may be wrong.
The SCOUS ruled the law says the EPA is to decide what’s doing the polluting, seek it out and regulate to their heart’s content.
Congress likes to delegate their power so when things go to hell they can march out together and say “hands up; don’t shoot.”
“Hands up, Don’t shoot”
Don’t go there. Eye witnesses verified it was not the truth in Ferguson. Using it perpetuates a deliberate false statement that remains as a smear against all policemen.
Wish we could.
The Constitution was created with
very powerful State governments
for this very reason. But that no
longer exists. Gunna have to vote
them out in 2016. Unfortunately,
most rules will take effect with negative
consequences about the time Obama
leaves office.
Better than congress passing and the prez using his pen to make laws to combat CAGW.
The best way to fight this nonsense is to elect a Republican President in 2016. The “new” insane EPA regulations will not be able to kick in before then. A new administration can reverse dumb regulations.
An establishment Republican will not reverse this! They see no problem with ever more intrusive government – they just want to be the ones controlling it. Both parties are infested with people whose first assumption is that most people aren’t smart enough to be allowed to make decisions for themselves. The ideas of the founders that contrary to the establishment political view today all power and important decisions reside within the individual and government is a necessary evil to manage the few innumerated tasks that an individual can not perform. (A powerful servant of the people but a fearful master, as G. Washington wrote in a comparison of government with fire.)
Maybe if there were a true conservative out there, but they all seem to be suffering from the same progressive infestation.
Two guys to watch might be Rand Paul and Scott Walker.
Walker has executive experience and has faced down the unions.
We will need a true change in direction to get the independents onboard to beat Hillary.
So far there is nobody else out there that has a back bone.
I like Cruz but I doubt he could beat her.
The media will hammer any flaw from non-progressives until they get the candidate the democrats want the republicans to run.
We need to force the Presidential Debate Commission to put a 3rd candidate in the debate.
Walker or Paul would make the insiders squirm.
Conservative or libertarian third party candidates do nothing but guarantee Democrat dominance.
Much as I don’t like mainstream Republicans, the only real alternative is liberal Democrats. That’s where public opinion is now, after decades of vote buying by taking money from productive members of society, ie tax payers (not public employees, for whom tax paying is just an accounting trick), and giving it to tax consumers.
We are at the stage of democracy which the Founders feared and against which Tocqueville warned, wherein a sponging majority can vote to rob the productive members of society.
Forty percent or more will vote to rob the “rich”, however defined. It is the end of the American republic, an experiment in liberty that was perhaps doomed to fail, but whose decline was made certain by Obama’s scheme to let impoverished foreigners vote.
Dear Ms. Ronconi,
Your rationally-based, dire, conclusions may, indeed, be correct. I still have much hope, nevertheless, that we Constitution-honoring, liberty-loving, Americans can turn things around.
And you are SO right — the reason the Republicans lose is the Independent candidate that so many have over and over again stubbornly voted for EVEN THOUGH they knew it would (and did!) likely cost the ordered liberty candidate, i.e., the Republican (and yes, there are many who are only RINOs), the race. Ross Perot …. Ron Paul…. . I think, this time around, however, many of those libertarians who detest Republicans per se will do the pragmatic thing and rally behind what is (from their perspective) the lesser of two evils and NOT spoil the chances of the Republican from winning. It will be ANYBODY (as in whoever is the Rep. candidate) BUT THE DEMOCRAT, this time not just for the majority of us (that was me v. a v. (hold my nose) McCain).
A note of hope:
IF we ordered liberty people can EDUCATE those “impoverished foreigners,” that strategy of the Dems will BACKFIRE — big time.
MOST of those immigrants:
1. LOVE liberty (far more than the average socialist/democrat voter).
2. Are eager to achieve the American dream and take pride in NOT taking handouts once they have a good job.
3. Are far more entrepreneurial and enterprising than the poor who grew up in America — the immigrants WANT to own their own businesses/farms.
4. They want to keep their hard-earned money to help their family.
5. They value family VERY highly — far, far, more than they value “saving the planet.”
Conclusion: with excellent education, such “impoverished foreigners” will vote for free markets and ordered liberty every time.
Take heart! Truth wins. In the end, truth wins.
There is still time.
Your ally for CO2 truth and liberty,
Janice
My 3 favorite possible Republican candidates:
1. Ben Carson
2. Ted Cruz
3. Scott Walker (I keep mixing him up with that Playgirl Scott Brown (?) from Massachusetts (not him! he is a RINO).
Catherine Ronconi,
Yours is a most depressive and discouraging comment. There is nothing in my soul that will ever make me capitulate so thoroughly as you seem to have. I’d rather die on my feet than live on my knees. Your ‘certainty’ is PTSD, Post Traumatic Socialist Disease, I think. You need to step away from the negative, soul sucking socialist crap in the news that seeks to grind us down each day. Choose instead to surround yourself with folks that believe in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave!
How can I help you? This land is worth fighting for…. to the last measure, if need be. There are many true conservative groups all across this land to affiliate with and provide emotional support for the weary ‘brave heart’. These groups are engaged in grass roots actions, as we prepare good candidates for local elections this year and national elections next year. Come help us. Would you consider running for a school board position? If you deny a socialist democrat that position, your philosophy and perspectives will have influence and you may find higher office in the coming years! It’s not too late…. and fighting and winning is soooooooo satisfying.
C’mon! Let’s go on offense!
Mac
John Kasich, current Gov of Ohio. While he was a Congressman in the early 1990’s he was the minority leader of the House Budget Committee. It was he, not so much Newt, that lead the way in fixing the economy. He is a straight shooter who has loads of respect from both side. That’s the guy we all need.
He may once have BEEN free market, but, now he is a big-time windmill promoter. I think he has morphed in to a RINO, unfortunately.
Interesting article. Overwhelmingly stupid comments however.
Here’s something I really don’t understand. All the AGW activists claim they wish to free us of nasty co2 creating dependence on fossil fuels. Well then lets do it! Let’s have a presidential address like Kennedy’s “to the moon” speech where the goal is to transform the personal transportation of Americans to electrical driven and to get there we streamline the approval and construction process to build the necessary nuclear facilities to power that and replace coal facilities as well as the attendant economic growth inevitable from having economical energy. Problem Solved. We might as well China doesn’t even wish to talk about co2 restrictions for 20 years or ,that is to say, until they have brought the currently under construction 28 facilities on line as well as the projected additional 30 facilities be tween now and then. Go figure greenies we are going to have to deal with nuclear waste like it or not!
For Californians, that electriciy price is actually way to low for most people due to the tier structure. Most of my electricity comes in at tier 3 and tier 4. Tier four is a whopping 39c a kwh. My average cost is closer to about 26c a kwh. I am in the process of installing solar, but I calculate that is actually going to cost me about 24cents a kwh for solar before the tax deduction. But since I pay taxes, really CANT claim that as a savings because my (along with the rest of the people who pay taxes) taxes go up to cover the cost of the tax deduction. I am ALL for the states telling the EPA to shove it! Wish I could tell the disgusting Liberals that run the state in CA to go pound sand as well.
Slicing and dicing the data from the EIA: http://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-54yDlE9ZKWo/VQtKzr8iFEI/AAAAAAAAAY4/d9iTxGs9R2w/s1600/electricity%2Bper%2Bcapita%2B01.png
Rather unsurprisingly, the top plot shows more electricity consumed per capita [1] when price/kWh is low. Also not unexpected, as average per capita income rises, so do electricity costs.
Somewhat counter-intuitively, the bottom plot suggests that less electricity is consumed in states with higher average per capita incomes, and even more potentially bizarre, the penultimate plot suggests that states with the highest average percent per capita electricity expenditures have the lowest electricity costs.
Both are suggestions only, and both are counter-intuitive because the general rule of thumb is that individual consumption is proportional to wealth. But at the aggregate state level, the stats seem to show an inverse relationship. It might make sense in terms of thinking about housing costs in states with higher average electricity prices — folks are spending more of their incomes for smaller living quarters, which means less demand for electricity. And may also explain why in “ecoloon” states, which tend to also have high population densities and correspondingly high real-estate values, are more supportive of electricity rate hikes — it’s not as big a chunk of the average person’s budget. Or in other words, cross-state comparisons don’t show the expected positive correlation between wealth and energy consumption because housing situations differ so broadly between states that it swamps that particular signal.
I imagine a popular argument from the “greener-minded” folks living in coastal states will be, “c’mon, we’re already doing fine using less electricity per head than you guys, wot’s the big deal, eh?” I don’t think it’s a very defensible argument — not everyone wants to live in a one-bedroom apartment and pay about as much in rent (or MORE!) as people in Texas pay on their mortgage for a three-bedroom house. Speaking of Texas, the head post makes this point:
That’s a big scary percentage in terms of per-unit electricity cost, but what does it mean for the average person in terms of their income? The 2009-2013 average per capita income in Texas was $26,019. In 2013, the average annual electric bill was $523 per head, or 2.01% of per capita income. Assuming constant 2013 dollars and no change in consumption, a 1.2% electric rate hike works out to $628 per annum, per person, or 2.41% of income. The difference is $105 per year per person, or 0.40% of income.
In Texas, that’s about half the average cost of a tank of gasoline, or one round-trip to and from work. Oh, but I snark … couldn’t be helped. Here’s what 2013-2014 electricity sales by state ranked by % income per capita looks like [2], with per capita income in absolute 2013 dollars for each state in the same order for easy comparison:
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-fclqyyGEgVY/VQtYXaFKMJI/AAAAAAAAAZI/zmtBAgiwp_4/s1600/electricity%2Bbar%2Bsales%2Band%2Bincome%2Bper%2Bcapita%2B01.png
Again, the seeming oddity of higher income states spending less of a percentage of income on electricity is readily apparent. Head post continues:
So, I went and read the actual report here: http://www.nera.com/content/dam/nera/publications/2014/NERA_ACCCE_CPP_Final_10.17.2014.pdf
$479 by 2013 comes from “Figure ES-2: Energy System Costs of State Unconstrained (BB1-4) and State Constrained (BB1-2) Scenarios” The text just below that table says:
The net cost of the State Constrained (BB1-2) scenario—which excludes end-use energy efficiency, renewables and additional nuclear energy from compliance—is substantially greater than the State Unconstrained (BB1-4) scenario.
Lo and behold, the report estimates that implementing efficiency would result in $366 billion in consumer costs by 2031, $113 billion less than the quoted $479 billion for the State Unconstrained (BB1-4) scenario. Always nice when a press release tells the full story, innit. There’s another oddity here in the $1,500 cost per capita calculation: $479 billion / $1,500 per person = 319,333,333 people, which is essentially the current population estimate. The US Senseless calls for a population of 361,685,000 by 2031. In constant 2013 dollars, that works out to between $1,012 and $1,324 per head by 2031. From the EIA data, I divine that currently, the average annual electrical bill per person is $485, so that would be a 109% to 173% increase in rates over 15 years, which is too high. Assuming Texas 20% increase over 5 years is representative, that’s a 3.7% annual rate.
Compounding annually again over 20 years and the increase is 73%. So $839 is the expected per capita annual electrial bill, a $353 per-head increase in 2013 constant dollars or about 1.36% of average US per capita income. Something is amiss. Oh look, the caption for Figure ES-2 reads:
Notes: Present value is from 2017 through 2031, taken in 2014 using a 5% real discount rate.
Well gee, a 5% discount rate will tend to inflate things. One page up from that figure, the body text of the report reads: Delivered electricity prices would increase by about 12% on average over 2017 through 2031 . However, these figures omit several factors that could add to impacts and costs.
And then just below the figure which breaks down those other factor, the top of the same page as Figure ES-2 says: Such a constrained compliance scenario would result in very large changes in the electricity system, including 169 GW of coal retirements, a 29% average increase in natural gas prices and a 17% increase in average delivered electricity prices.
We can quotemine this thing endlessly and have it tell us any story we’d like, especially if we’re prone to passing off present value calculations as if they were non-inflated constant dollars. And none of this will make any sense unless those huge billions of bux are expressed in terms of percentage of people and/or percent of per capita income.
That ALL said, the billion dollar question really is: what are the external costs of burning coal? NIH and WHO respectively estimate between 30 and 60 thousand premature deaths per year in the US alone. The EPA isn’t all about CO2 these days, despite contrary unpopular opinion.
——————
[1] All demographic info in this post from this table: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_income#States_ranked_by_per_capita_income
[2] The sort is by 2014 electrical consumption. I should have used 2013 for consistency, but I’m too lazy to fix it.
There is a very simple solution to the problem of EPA overreach and a lot of similar problems. Congress passes a law that there are no regulations. The executive branch agencies can suggest and even draft laws. Congress votes to impose laws. Obama would veto it. Perhaps there would be enough votes to override the veto. If not, the next election can be settled by a simple campaign question: Do you want a government that you can throw out if it does not do what you want? Very few of those that voted to uphold the veto would survive.
However, I doubt it will happen. Most congress critters are cowards that dragged us into this problem by evading responsibility or hoping to be seen as “doing something.”
What on earth is going on here?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2581887/The-bonfire-insanity-Woodland-shipped-3-800-miles-burned-Drax-power-station-It-belches-CO2-coal-huge-cost-YOU-pay-cleaner-greener-Britain.html
‘But wouldn’t a much more effective and cheaper way of cutting emissions be to shut down Drax altogether, and replace it with clean new gas plants – which need no subsidy at all?
Mr Burdett said: ‘We develop our business plan in light of what the Government wants – not what might be nice.’’
Meanwhile-
http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/timblair/index.php/dailytelegraph/comments/bring_on_the_warmth/
These Green warmenistas are barking mad.
State Senator in MO fights back against EPA crackdown on BBQs and regulating motel showers:
http://www.examiner.com/article/missouri-state-senator-demands-that-the-epa-backoff-regulating-barbecues
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/20/us/politics/mitch-mcconnell-urges-states-to-help-thwart-obamas-war-on-coal.html?_r=0
US Senate leader urges states to fight unscientific EPA rules.
Maybe states could get together for some kind of a “class action suit” against the EPA…
A year and a half ago, I addressed an EPA hearing on the proposed rules. In the 3 minutes that were alotted to me I claimed that the rules were based upon conclusions drawn from equivocations: examples of equivocation fallacies. Rather than try to refute my claim the EPA ignored it.
I admire your grip on sanity, Terry. The relentless insistence on what you know to be a false narrative must be very difficult to bear.
The EPA is “primed n’ ready” to come and getcha for your use of a charcoal or propane “fired” outdoor grills.
Next the EPA will be coming to getcha for your use of a propane or NG “fired” cooking stove or indoor grill.
Iffen you don’t convert over to be doing all of your cooking via Solar Panel generated electricity ….. then you will be in non-compliance of EPA Laws ….. and thus in BIG trouble.