Sunday, August 21, 2011

Obama Works Hard On Vacation

And you thought our President was playing hooky at Martha's Vineyard, shirking his executive duties and obligations. Au contraire, mon ami. In between shaking hands, cavorting in the surf with his daughters, and enjoying haute cuisine at the local eateries, he is hard at work. On his very first day of vacation, Obama ordered the EPA to reinterpret the rules on coal-fired power plants.

Certain regulations regarding carbon emissions from coal plants that have been on the books for years have been routinely ignored until "green" technology could advance far enough to economically replace coal power. Even the EPA itself issued a stay on implementation of the regulations as recently as January of this year. But Obama has decided that it's time to enforce those regulations. I guess he thinks green technology has suddenly reached that point. I guess he also thinks the best thing to do during a major recession and high unemployment is to regulate energy providers out of business and put more people out of work.

You probably remember this, but I'll reiterate for those who don't remember Obama's stance on coal plants. During the 2008 presidential campaign, the non-identical twins Obama and Joe Biden made it clear that they would not tolerate coal power. The plan was to make coal usage cost-prohibitive. During the campaign, Obama chose the ultraliberal San Francisco Chronicle to announce the following: "So, if somebody wants to build a coal plant, they can. It's just that it will bankrupt them because they are going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that is being emitted."

On his first day of vacation on Martha's Vineyard, Obama chose to make that promise a reality. In the midst of a recession which is about to get worse from the president's inaction on economic issues, Obama will now throw fuel on the fire (bad metaphor?). Energy producers will now have to find more expensive ways to replace the energy formerly produced at coal-fired plants. 20% reduction in coal usage is the immediate goal.

The Commerce Department has estimated that immediate implementation of the previously-ignored regulations will result in the loss of 60,000 jobs. The Coal Industry Council estimates that the rules will cost $129 billion. The cost to consumers will rise almost on the first day by 20% to 35%. The EPA's earlier request for a stay cited those facts along with the opinions of 21 state governors, 100 members of Congress, and 5,800 public comments that the study which resulted in the previously-unused regulations was fatally flawed.

At a time when the economic costs of enforcing government regulations nears $1.75 trillion, Obama chooses to add to the burden. That figure comes from the government's own Small Business Administration. But shoring up his "progressive" base and rewarding his rich "green industry" pals is more important to Obama than the effect of his actions on the economy and ordinary, hard-working Americans. If he continues to work this hard during his vacation, we'll be in bankruptcy even sooner than expected. Double-dip recession, anyone?

8 comments:

StanH said...

Remember folks, do not watch the bouncing ball (Barry). He’s got dozens of czars to move his liberal agenda forward, in other words anti-American.

When this miserable bastard is sent back to Chicago 1/13, I’m for banishing the enviro-creeps to a newly formed 57th state, and take away all petroleum products, electricity, etc. and watch them exist in their perfect world.

Unknown said...

Stan: You're right. He has the government he wants (at least the executive branch). He doesn't have to do anything because he has the biggest bureaucracy in American history to carry out his socialist/statist/bureaucratic agenda.

In their perfect world, we give up petroleum products, electricity, automobiles and other modern amenities so that they can have them. By virtue of saving us from ourselves, they have earned the right to have the modern conveniences we will not be allowed to have.

Too bad Bob Hope and Bing Crosby aren't around to do one more road picture--The Road to Serfdom, script by F. von Hayek.

AndrewPrice said...

Good times. I guess the Democrats like rolling black outs. Fortunately, that's most likely to happen in liberal states and liberal cities. Maybe they can riot and do each other in.

Tehachapi Tom said...

Hawk
The pseudo-science perceptions that the green weenies embrace has been shown clearly to be false. With that said don't they (the green weenies) read?
Even my 13 year old grandson and his 12 year old cousin know better.
Shades of Gray Davis and our power crunch a few years ago. There is still what was a viable power generating plant in Bakersfield that is just sitting there rusting away because of that clown and his onerous regulations.

T-Rav said...

I think it's funny that the Left is now screaming again about how Obama's taken less vacation days at this point in his presidency than Dubya did in his. That is of course neglecting the fact that a lot of Bush's "vacation days" were at his Crawford ranch, which I suspect was a better place for getting actual work done than Martha's Vineyard is.

Unknown said...

Andrew: This is about the only crazed green scheme that won't impact us in my part of the country. We have a lot of hydroelectric power, and along with fossil fuels, we use nuclear power. Coal is a very insignificant part of our power delivery. So our greenies are trying to "stop the destruction of the environment" by prohibiting new hydroelectric dams and removing many of the existing ones. Nuclear power has long been on their hit list. Eventually we'll just live on magical rays coming from Neptune.

Unknown said...

Tehachapi Tom: Also remember that Democrats love to play with the market. They claimed to deregulate the costs of producing and delivering power, but in fact they re-regulated it allowing costs to rise at wholesale, but froze the delivery price at retail. So while many Californians were paying 50 cents per kilowatt, the power companies were paying 75 cents. That couldn't last long, and it didn't. Hence, rolling brownouts and blackouts.

Like everything else, California has abundant sources of power, but there is an overabundance of bureaucrats and agencies to prevent any development.

Unknown said...

T-Rav: And I'll go you one better. How many vacation days did Bush take in the wake of 9-11. We haven't had a terrorist attack, but the economy is on the edge of collapse while Obama nobly cuts his golfing time from eighteen to nine holes. The Crawford Ranch was the unofficial western White House, and while there, Bush used it exactly that way. Where is Obama's official vacation residence--the mayor's office in Chicago?

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