The bureaucratic hammer of the Obama administration has struck again with this week’s new EPA regulations.
They require coal-powered plants to cut carbon emissions by 30 percent from their 2005 levels by the year 2030. Even The New York Times conceded such a step is “unprecedented” in the annals of our regulatory history and that it could shut down hundreds of plants.
In other words, the war on coal has been renewed for its final push in Obama’s second-term. The move puts jobs on the line, posts more shutters on a vital component of American energy at a time when we need to be unleashing our potential more than ever, and is saddling consumers with higher costs.
This kind of assault on blue-collar workers and American electricity is unprecedented, but can we really say we didn’t expect it from the president who said electricity rates would “necessarily skyrocket” on his watch?
A study from the Institute of 21st Century Energy has already shown how my home state of Oklahoma will be impacted.
According to this study, Oklahoma, along with Texas, Louisiana, and Arkansas, is likely to see an annual GDP decrease of roughly $8.2 billion over the course of the next 16 years. That also equates to an annual loss of 36,000 jobs. In total, the study estimates $51 billion in annual economic losses, and 224,000 in annual job losses.
As for increases in electricity costs, Oklahoma could be facing up to $1.6 billion in higher costs annually. Other regions of the country are facing increases as high as $6.6 billion.
So – Team Obama is raising costs, killing jobs, and sidelining economic growth for the sake of pacifying the agenda of radical environmentalists who want to kill coal.
I don’t think that’s the kind of ‘Hope and Change’ folks had in mind.
These kind of regulatory shenanigans are exactly what I’ve taken the fight to since being elected to the Oklahoma state House. I helped author a bill halting overbearing and unwarranted green subsidies because we should’ve stopped allowing government to dictate its preferences in the free market yesterday.
Senate Bill 1456 leveled the playing field between competing energy sources. For too long we’d left the playing field unleveled, not accounting for the higher infrastructure costs that come with solar and wind. It amounted to a subsidy that just wasn’t fair.
We made the tough decisions and got results for the taxpayers. I’ve been attacked for it, but scoring political points wasn’t what I had in mind when I ran a primary challenge to an entrenched incumbent and pulled off an upset.
Talking the talk isn’t the punchline of conservatism; it’s all about getting things done. These new EPA regulations are a monstrosity that must be sledgehammered out of existence, and we need leaders who’ve proven they can make a difference.
That’s what I’ve done in Oklahoma. It’s what I’ll do in Congress, and it’s why I’m running for Oklahoma’s 5th congressional district at a time like this.
You don’t grow the economy by expanding government and empowering bureaucrats, but they don’t get that. You get the red tape out of the way so the private sector can grow and stop using taxpayer dollars to dictate the marketplace and pacify one bloc’s agenda.
This week the Obama administration announced we’re again going the opposite way, and they couldn’t be more wrong. In Congress, I’ll stand up to this nonsense tooth and nail, just like I did in Oklahoma.
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