Incoming: A Wave of Coal Plant Shutdowns.

[Jake Ralston]

"Over the next 18 months, the Environmental Protection Agency will finalize a flurry of new rules to curb pollution from coal-fired power plants. Mercury, smog, ozone, greenhouse gases, water intake, coal ash—it’s all getting regulated. And, not surprisingly, some lawmakers are grumbling."

"The regulations, they say, will cost utilities up to $129 billion and force them to retire one-fifth of coal capacity. Given that coal provides 45 percent of the country’s power, that means higher electric bills, more blackouts and fewer jobs."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/getting-ready-for-a-wave-of-coal-plant-shutdowns/2011/08/19/gIQAzkZ0PJ_blog.html

Discuss.

[HOLLYWOOD]

Government... maybe sell the IRS, Capital, and EPA buildings and use the cash to upgrade the plants for Clean Coal operations?

Systematically making Americans poorer and poorer one regulation at a time.

[Anti Federalist]

And, not surprisingly, some lawmakers are grumbling.

And that's all anybody does anymore, grumble.

And each time the police state cracks down a little harder, the grumbling gets a little less noisy, a little more cowed and guarded, a little more compliant.

[Anti Federalist]

Meanwhile, the Chinese open a new coal plant at least once a week.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/6769743.stm

A deliberate policy of de-industrialization and systematic destruction of the middle class is well underway, almost completed in fact.

Enjoy your third world living and daily millet.

[Sola_Fide]

This is a huge issue in KY right now.

[acptulsa]

Oklahoma was threatening a lawsuit over it.

[Danke]

Enjoy your third world living and daily millet.

Ya, made me think of "Oliver!"

http://civic.bev.net/sme/images/Oliver_Marquee.jpg

[flightlesskiwi]

the EPA estimates that an air-transport rule to clamp down on smog-causing sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide would help prevent 21,000 cases of bronchitis and 23,000 heart attacks, and save 36,000 lives. That’s, at the high end, $290 billion in health benefits, compared with $2.8 billion per year in costs (according to the EPA) by 2014. “In most cases,” CRS concludes, “the benefits are larger.”

dontcha just love how they pull numbers outta their ass?

i'm a coal miner's daughter and i watched as the american coal industry was all but destroyed due to regulation after regulation. right along with the steel industry. i watched mine after mine close down. i've known men who were able to live a good middle-class life and support their families be forced out of work. finally i watched as my dad's coal mine (an underground mine-- one of the only to make it through the 90's in soIL) became a lost cause because of the EPA, MSHA and OSHA, even though there are still decades worth of coal stores in that very mine.

infuriating.

[acptulsa]

The oil companies own the government. Obviously, the coal companies just aren't 'generous' enough with our beloved representatives...

[tangent4ronpaul]

I was watching something the other day and they said that for every single government regulator 98 jobs were lost every year.

It's ironic that we could solve unemployment and fix the economy by firing a bunch of people.

-t