By Don Todd
On January 17, 2008 Candidate Obama said the following “So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can; it’s just that it will bankrupt them because they’re going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that’s being emitted.”
What Obama was talking about was a carbon dioxide (a plant food) cap and trade scheme that would have put a large part of the electricity generation industry out of business. So far, Congress has resisted such a scheme. Obama knowing there is more than one way to bankrupt an industry has gone around Congress and plans to do by regulation what Congress will not do by legislation.
Using the EPA (Employment Prevention Agency) he is proposing a “Clean Power Plan.” On the White House web site he outlines the goals of the Plan.
They are: “The Clean Power Plan sets achievable standards to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 32 percent from 2005 levels by 2030. By setting these goals and enabling states to create tailored plans to meet them, the Plan will: Protect the health of American families. In 2030, it will: Prevent up to 3,600 premature deaths; Prevent 1,700 non-fatal heart attacks; Prevent 90,000 asthma attacks in children; [and] Prevent 300,000 missed workdays and schooldays.”
Notice how all the wonderful things this plan will accomplish are in round numbers like, “Prevent 1,700 non-fatal heart attacks.” Really? Is the President sure it will be 1,700 and not 1,699 or 1,701? This is what passes for science at the White House.
Twenty four states have banded together in a bi-partisan lawsuit to stop this insanity. They are: West Virginia Texas, Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Jersey, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, Wisconsin, Wyoming, Arizona and North Carolina.
In an effort to derail these anti-electricity actions by the Obama Administration and the anti-civilization environmental movement the coal industry spent untold millions on a clean coal public relations effort. Television and radio paid ads extolling the benefits of coal as, “buried sunshine.” Predictably such efforts failed miserably. They could have just as well buried their money.
The oil companies have recently began a similar campaign featuring a young lady claiming to be an energy voter. It will have the same negligible effect on the debate.
The energy industry should borrow a page from the National Rifle Association. The NRA has won its many fights with the gun grabbers (a NRA coined phase) by extolling guns as harmless little items with many benefits. They went after the motives of their opponents.
Just as those who want to disarm the public could really care less about crime and the sanctity of life the freeze in the dark crowd is really not concerned about the environment. It is not about mythical global warming it is about controlling the population. Even if were about mythical global warming it would not be an easy sell since a recent poll shows that less than ten percent of the public thinks it is an important issue.
While the left screams from the house tops that the people who provide us with the ability to light, heat, and cool our homes and fuel our transportation are evil greedy, earth destroyers the industry responds with ineffectual, “corporations are people too,” PR campaigns.
The fact of the matter is the left is out to destroy the standard of living for the vast majority of the American people. If nobody is willing to point that out we will eventually all freeze in the dark.
Don Todd is Director of Research at Americans for Limited Government.
