While environmentalists loathe coal in general, they hate especially coal produced via mountaintop removal mining. Unfortunately for them, the mining practice, which is essential to the economies of West Virginia and Kentucky, is sanctioned by state and federal law. In 1977, the Congress enacted the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act, legislation that created a regulatory regime for surface mining practices like mountaintop mining.
Now, thirty-five years after the Congress endorsed mountaintop mining, President Barack Obama is poised to radically reinterpret SMCRA—legislation that authorizes mountaintop mining—such that the law would ban it. This contortion of legal logic is an affront to Congressional intent. It has engendered a stern reaction from the majority party on the House Natural Resources Committee, which is threatening to subpoena the White House unless it starts explaining its bizarre reasoning.
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It’s wholly untrue to claim that President Barack Obama is picking and choosing winners in the energy industry, because this administration seems to only pick losers…
…Like the Pickens Plan. Last week, in the immediate wake of a populist State of the Union address, President Barack Obama threw his weight behind H.R. 1380, the New Alternative Transportation to Give Americans Solutions Act (a.k.a., the NAT GAS Act, a.k.a., “The T. Boone Pickens Earmark Bill,” a.k.a., the “Pickens-Your-Pocket Boondoggle Bill,” a.k.a the “Billionaire’s Bailout.” This legislation was written by billionaire natural gas magnate T. Boone Pickens, in order to compel Americans to use more natural gas, and thereby further pad Pickens’s pockets.
The NATGAS Act would be an unprecedented special interest giveaway. I cannot recall legislation pitched by a billionaire for the benefit of that billionaire. So my jaw hit the floor when I read Pickens’s press release applauding the President’s decision to pick the Pickens Plan, in which “legendary energy executive T. Boone Pickens” says:
“While Washington appears to now understand the issue, make no mistake. I will continue to be outspoken on this subject, and continue to call out the special interests that are working to undermine this bold and important agenda.”
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Recently, I blogged about EPA’s big mercury lie. In a nutshell, the Agency claims that its ultra-expensive new Mercury and Air Toxics rule is appropriate and necessary in order to protect fetuses from developmental disorders. Yet, according to EPA’s own analysis, the new mercury regulation serves to protect America’s supposed population of pregnant, subsistence fisherwomen, who eat 300 pounds of self-caught fish reeled in exclusively from the most polluted bodies of water. To put it another way, this regulation, which costs $10 billion annually, safeguards a population that doesn’t exist.
Already, this ridiculous regulation is killing jobs. Ohio-based FirstEnergy Corp. last Thursday announced that it would retire six coal-fired power plants in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Maryland, in order to comply with the Environmental Protection Agency’s new Mercury and Air Toxics Standards rule. According to the company, 530 employees will be affected. While FirstEnergy stressed that some workers would be relocated, it is certain that many will lose their jobs.
In the proposed Mercury and Air Toxics rule, EPA has the gumption to claim that the regulation would be a net job creator (see 76 FR 25076). EPA acknowledges that the mercury rule would eliminate jobs at coal-fired power plants, but the Agency believes that more jobs would be created in the emissions control industry. In light of the purposelessness of the Mercury and Air Toxics rule, EPA’s claim that the regulation is a job creator is like saying that it is good economic policy to blow open a hole in the earth with dynamite and then pay people to fill it back in.
Earlier this week, Stimulus beneficiary Evergreen
I foresaw this spate of bad news last November. As I explained yesterday,
In a previous post, I compared renewable energy spending in the 2009 Stimulus to a green albatross burdening the President. I argued that Stimulus spending was inherently wasteful, because politics invariably corrupts government’s investment decisions. The result is taxpayers losses on bankrupt companies that existed only by the grace of political favoritism, a la Solyndra. I predicted the green stimulus would haunt the President, in the form of a slow drip public relations nightmare, as a litany of bad investments go belly-up in the run up to the 2012 elections.
Mr. President, are you still sure you want to “double down” on renewable energy giveaways?
President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address hitched its wagon to the 99 percent. The speech was rife with populist rhetoric, of which the following is only one example:
We can either settle for a country where a shrinking number of people do really well while a growing number of Americans barely get by, or we can restore an economy where everyone gets a fair shot, and everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same set of rules.
This morning, less than 48 hours removed from his defense of the little guy, the President gave a speech in Nevada during which he championed…H.R. 1380, the New Alternative Transportation to Give Americans Solutions Act (a.k.a., the NAT GAS Act, a.k.a., “The T. Boone Pickens Earmark Bill,” a.k.a., the “Pickens-Your-Pocket Boondoggle Bill”), legislation that was manufactured by billionaire T. Boone Pickens in order to make himself even richer. The bill would subsidize the use of natural gas as a fuel for the transportation sector, in particular for the trucking industry. Pickens is a gas tycoon, and it goes without saying that legislation to increase demand for gas is good for his bottom line.
By throwing his weight behind this Billionaire’s Bailout, President Obama exposed the vapidity of his SOTU commitment to an America where “everyone plays by the same rules.” The NAT GAS Act was written by billionaires, for billionaires.
In a previous post, I compared renewable energy spending in the 2009 Stimulus to a green albatross burdening the President. I argued that Stimulus spending was inherently wasteful, because politics invariably corrupts government’s investment decisions. The result is taxpayers losses on bankrupt companies that existed only by the grace of political favoritism, a la Solyndra. I predicted the green stimulus would haunt the President, in the form of a slow drip public relations nightmare, as a litany of bad investments go belly-up in the run up to the 2012 elections.
Earlier in the week, Stimulus beneficiary Evergreen Energy bit the dust. Today, Ener1, a manufacturer of batteries for electric vehicles and recipient of Stimulus largesse, filed for bankruptcy. As is noted by the Heritage Foundation’s Robert Bluey at The Foundry, the Obama Administration mistakenly deemed Ener1 a success a year ago.
Mr. President, are you still sure you want to “double down” on renewable energy giveaways?
During Tuesday night’s State of the Union address, President Barack Obama called for an “all of the above” energy policy. My colleague Dr. David Kreutzer, Research Fellow in Energy Economics and Climate Change at the Heritage Foundation, offers the following observation regarding the President’s pitch:
Obama’s version of “all of the above.”
Which energy policy is best?
a. Subsidize solar energy, wind energy, and biofuels
b. Mandate the consumption of solar energy, wind energy, and biofuel
c. All of the above
d. Allow markets to produce petroleum, natural gas, and coal at affordable prices
Last night, President Barack Obama said that it’s time “to double-down on a clean energy industry that never has been more promising.”
Below, I reprint an excellent response to the President’s green energy nonsense, by Dr. David Kreutzer, Research Fellow in Energy Economics and Climate Change at the Heritage Foundation.
Saying the clean energy industry has never been more promising is damning with faint praise. The following have also never been more promising than they are right now:
- Time travel
- Anti-gravity boots
- Teleportation
- Smart pills
- Everything-proof force fields
- Flying cars and
- High-speed rail
Why does Obama want to double down on just clean energy and high-speed rail?
During last night’s State of the Union address, President Barack Obama made the eye-catching claim that, “Right now—right now—American oil production is the highest that it’s been in eight years.” In fact, this is malarkey, because the increase in oil production has nothing to do with the President’s policies. Indeed, the increase occurred in spite of this administration’s actions. As is explained by our friends at the Institute for Energy Research:
The reality is that oil production on federal lands is falling, while production on private and state lands is rising.[2] There is a long term trend of decreasing oil production on federal lands. In fact, oil production on federal lands has fallen by 43 percent over the past 9 years according to the Obama administration’s Energy Information Administration.[3] And it has dropped rapidly on President Obama’s watch.
IER provides this handy graph in order to help make its point:
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