The Environmental Protection Agency will propose a draft rule on Monday seeking a 30% reduction in carbon-dioxide emissions by 2030 from existing power plants based on emission levels from 2005, according to two people who have been briefed on the rule, setting in motion the main piece of President Barack Obama’s climate-change agenda.
The rule, scheduled to be completed one year from now, will give flexibility to the states, which must implement the rules and submit compliance plans to EPA by June 2016. States can decide how to meet the reductions, including joining or creating new cap-and-trade programs, deploying more renewable energy or ramping up energy-efficiency technologies.
Each state will have different percent reduction standards, and the national average will be 25% by 2020 and 30% by 2030, these people said.
The proposed rule will regulate carbon emissions from hundreds of fossil-fuel power plants across the U.S., including about 600 coal plants, which will be hit hardest by the standard.
“EPA will release its proposed carbon pollution reduction rule on Monday,” EPA spokesman Tom Reynolds said. “Until then the agency will not comment on any information that may or may not be in the proposal.”
So let’s work out what follows next. If emissions are cut, then production will be reduced. It’s a law of economics that when supply goes down, and demand stays the same, then prices will rise. Either that or the power plants will have to become more efficient, which also costs more money. Are you ready for higher electricity prices?
Update: Republicans say EPA regulation will up to 800, 000 jobs.
Well, before you answer, you can watch this new video from Project Veritas.
And read this article from the liberal Hollywood Reporter about the sting.
Excerpt:
James O’Keefe says he duped Ed Begley Jr. and Mariel Hemingway into agreeing to get involved with an anti-fracking movie while hiding that its funding comes from Middle Eastern oil interests.
Journalist James O’Keefe, known for his controversial undercover sting operations aimed usually at liberals — is set to unveil at the Cannes Film Festival on Wednesday the first of a group of videos that he says will reveal hypocrisy among Hollywood environmentalists.
In the video, obtained exclusively by The Hollywood Reporter and embedded below, actors Ed Begley Jr. and Mariel Hemingway are duped by a man named “Muhammad,” who is looking to make an anti-fracking movie while hiding that its funding is coming from Middle Eastern oil interests.
Muhammad, accompanied by a man pretending to be an ad executive, seemingly has the two actors agreeing to participate in the scheme, even after he acknowledges that his goal is to keep America from becoming energy independent. The meeting, which appears to have been secretly recorded, took place a few months ago at the Beverly Hills Hotel.
But the real target of the sting operation appears to be Josh and Rebecca Tickell, a husband and wife team known for their environmental movies, such as 2008’s Fuel, which won an award at Sundance and was later screened at the White House for members of President Obama’s administration.
Begley tells THR that if it looks like he’s agreeing with faux Muhammad about anything, it’s because the Tickells asked him to be polite so that they’d get their funding for a movie they’re making calledFracked, a film that will argue a technique for extracting natural gas called fracking is bad for the environment. Also, Begley says that he is hard of hearing and couldn’t understand everything Muhammad was saying.
The video also includes some audio from phone conversations between the fake Muhammad’s representatives and the Tickells. “We’re confident that we can keep this zip-locked. You know, tight. Tight. Air-tight forever,” Josh Tickell is heard saying. “If we don’t protect who is kind of funding this thing … if we have to disclose that or that becomes a necessary part of it, the whole enterprise will not work.”
Rebecca Tickell adds: “Because if people think the film is funded by Middle Eastern oil it will, it will not have that credibility,” and Josh Tickell says, “It’s money, so in that sense we have no moral issue.”
I always marvel at how liberals in Hollywood were able to get so much money from Americans at a time when we were a much more conservative, Christian nation. When you give money to Hollywood, you have to understand that you are transferring wealth to immoral, anti-American people. Is your entertainment worth that? How will you explain that to God when he asks you about your stewardship of what he entrusted you with? Your money is your voice in a culture war. Don’t let someone else speak for you.
I watch maybe one movie a year in the theaters, and I don’t have a TV, cable, or Netflix. If I buy anything, it will be some DVD like the BBC’s “North and South” or the complete “Danger Man” with Patrick McGoohan. Why would I give some of the most immoral people in the world my money? How does that help?
The EPA will launch the most dramatic anti-pollution regulation in a generation early next month, a sweeping crackdown on carbon that offers President Barack Obama his last real shot at a legacy on climate change — while causing significant political peril for red-state Democrats.
The move could produce a dramatic makeover of the power industry, shifting it away from coal-burning plants toward natural gas, solar and wind. While this is the big move environmentalists have been yearning for, it also has major political implications in November for a president already under fire for what the GOP is branding a job-killing “War on Coal,” and promises to be an election issue in energy-producing states such as West Virginia, Kentucky and Louisiana.
[…]But for coal country, the rule is yet another indignity for an industry already facing a wave of power plant shutdowns amid hostile market forces and a series of separate EPA air regulations. Coal-state Democrats like West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin have joined the criticism, echoing industry warnings that the fossil fuel was crucial to keeping the lights on in much of the U.S. during this past brutal winter.
“You have another polar vortex next year, how many people will lose their lives?” Manchin asked at a POLITICO energy policy forum Tuesday.
[…]It’s not just the coal industry that’s losing sleep over the rule. Manufacturers and industries like oil refining have been eyeing the power plant regulations as the starting gun for a process that will eventually lead to greenhouse gas limits for a wide variety of businesses.
“These regulations could reduce the diversity of our energy supply, increase electricity and compliance costs for American businesses and shrink our competitiveness,” said Ross Eisenberg, vice president for energy and resources policy at the National Association of Manufacturers. “We can’t sit by silently while that happens.”
The EPA’s rule proposal is supposed to go live on June 2nd. Plenty of time for people in red and purple states to decide whether they prefer gay marriage to low electricity bills. I would say that the chances of the Republicans taking the Senate now is up near 75%.
WINTERY KNIGHT 