EPA’s Looming Blackouts

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From Investors Business Daily:

Editorial

August 22, 2011

Energy: It won’t matter which light bulbs we use as the administration’s implementation of cross-state pollution rules shuts down coal plants across the country. Where will the jobs be when the lights go out?

It’s called the Cross-State Pollution Rule, announced last month, and its implementation over the next 18 months will likely result in the loss of a fifth of the nation’s electricity-generating capacity.

The result will be likely power shortages, skyrocketing rates and inevitable brownouts and rolling blackouts. [Emphasis added]

Based on Bush-era EPA proposals that the federal courts threw out in 2008, this latest example of legislation is designed to usurp state powers to regulate their in-state emissions by making it a federal issue on the grounds pollution crosses state lines.

The rule requires coal companies in 27 states to slash emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide by 73% and 54%, respectively, from 2005 levels by 2014. “Just because wind and weather will carry air pollution away from its source at a local power plant doesn’t mean that pollution is no longer that plant’s responsibility,” says Environmental Protection Agency Chief Lisa Jackson.

The targets are states such as Texas that not only resist federal encroachment on their powers but dare to try to balance environmental quality. The EPA claims huge health gains as its justification, but those claims are in doubt. Poverty and joblessness, which this and other EPA rules will create, carry their own health risks.

Two days before Christmas, EPA Regional Administrator Al Armendariz said in a letter that the agency was taking permitting authority over refineries, power plants and cement facilities in Texas from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) starting last Jan. 2.

“The EPA’s misguided plan paints a huge target on the backs of Texas agriculture and energy producers by implementing unnecessary, burdensome mandates on our state’s energy sector, threatening hundreds of thousands of Texas jobs and imposing increased living costs on Texas families,” Katherine Cesinger, a spokeswoman for Gov. Rick Perry, said in an e-mailed statement.

TCEQ is the world’s second-largest environmental regulatory agency after the EPA. Cesinger notes that the state’s flexible air quality permitting system, one that considers economic impact, has led, for example, to a 22% reduction in ozone and a 53% decrease in nitrous oxide since 2000.

Texas environmental policies are designed to work with industry so job growth is not eviscerated. Texas utilities have been ordered by the EPA to cut sulfur dioxide emissions by 47% from 2010 levels and nitrogen oxide by 8% and to do it by next January.

The head of the Texas Public Utility Commission says the rules could lead to rolling blackouts. The American Legislative Exchange Council says that nationally the new regulations will cost up to $129 billion and force utilities to retire one-fifth of coal-generating capacity.

Up to 110 gigawatts of capacity came on-line between 1940 and 1969 and were grandfathered under the Clean Air Act. Now the EPA is saying bring them up to their code or shut them down.

Continue reading here……..

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Where will YOU be when the lights go out?

Will Americans be forced through edict/fiat to revert back to living like pioneers?

Wood stoves and candles?

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“In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.”

January 20, 1981: From Reagan’s Inaugural Address.

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WATCH Obama’s Other Hand! EPA and WATER Control.

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From Investor’s Business Daily:

Obama’s Other Hand

Posted 04/29/2011

Regulation: While we were distracted by the president’s birth certificate show-and-tell, his EPA releases its guidelines for expanding federal power under the Clean Water Act. America’s economy and freedom are at stake. [Emphasis added]

President Obama’s long-form birth certificate wasn’t the only thing released last Wednesday, but it was probably the least important. The Environmental Protection Agency also released its guidelines for expanding federal power over the nation’s waterways, ponds and puddles.

These guidelines will take effect after a 60-day comment period and will serve as a reference for environmental agencies in determining their jurisdiction over a particular body of water, large or small. They will eventually morph into binding regulations as damaging to our economy and freedom as the EPA regulation of carbon dioxide emissions.

The 1972 Clean Water Act was originally intended to protect the “navigable waters of the United States” — you know, the kind boats travel down. It was broadly and quickly interpreted to any pool of water in America capable of supporting a bathtub-variety boat.

The word “navigable” was forgotten and ignored, and the act’s scope expanded to the point that water that collected after a rainstorm was considered a “wetland” worthy of environmental protection.

A 2006 U.S. Supreme Court case from Michigan produced five different opinions and no clear definition of which waterways were covered. This essentially left the government with a clean slate on which to write its own interpretation — just about everything.

House Agricultural Committee Chairman Frank Lucas, R-Okla., says the expanded EPA guidelines would let the government “regulate essentially any body of water, such as a farm pond or even a ditch.” A bipartisan group of 170 congressmen wrote a letter to the EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers urging them not to issue the expanded guidelines.

The American Farm Bureau Federation said in a statement that the guidelines “take an overly broad view of ‘waters of the U.S.’ It would serve as a road map for EPA and the Corps to designate nearly all water bodies, and even some on dry land, as subject to federal regulations that dictate land-use decisions.”

Not just agriculture but energy production is affected. The EPA recently revoked the coal mining permit for Arch Coal’s Spruce Mine No. 1 in Logan County, W.Va. The permit was issued four years ago and since then Arch Coal, which provides 16% of America’s supply, has followed every jot and tittle of the rules it was told to operate under. It didn’t matter.

More………

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Obama Expanding Powers:

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Control WATER……control Agriculture.

The “10 Planks” of the Communist Manifesto

Karl Marx was paid by the “League of the Just” (later named the “Communist League”) in 1847 to write the Communist Manifesto, and paid again to rewrite it in 1848.  The Manifesto was intended to incite violent revolution, was a recipe for tyranny itself, and was later used as propaganda (a ‘glorious goal’ to believe in) to blind followers to the realities of the brutal dictatorships that oppressed all workers and slaughtered millions under Communist rule.  Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” and Mao’s “Little Red Book” served similar evil and deadly purposes. Many dictators throughout history and today attempt to disguise their tyranny with fancy labels and phony philosophies to make slavery seem somehow just and essential–another example was the earlier doctrine of “divine rule of kings.” These 10 steps are just a part of the Manifesto, the full text of which can be found on the web.

Western nations including the United States have gradually implemented virtually all of Marx’s 10 key steps toward creating a dictatorship. What are some examples can you find?  Americans would be wise to study the “Ten Planks” and demand that the President and Congress abolish all laws, regulations and agencies which govern these (and all other) unconstitutional seizures of power. Communism was never intended to free man, but to enslave him; indeed the Communist Manifesto promised a “dictatorship of the proletariat” and history proved it always ended up slaughtering and enslaving millions of the proletariat.

Karl Marx’s “10 Planks” to seize power and destroy freedom:

1. Abolition of Property in Land and Application of all Rents of Land to Public Purpose.

2. A Heavy Progressive or Graduated Income Tax.

3. Abolition of All Rights of Inheritance.

4. Confiscation of the Property of All Emigrants and Rebels.

5. Centralization of Credit in the Hands of the State, by Means of a National Bank with State Capital and an Exclusive Monopoly.

6. Centralization of the Means of Communication and Transport in the Hands of the State.

7. Extension of Factories and Instruments of Production Owned by the State, the Bringing Into Cultivation of Waste Lands, and the Improvement of the Soil Generally in Accordance with a Common Plan.

8. Equal Liability of All to Labor. Establishment of Industrial Armies, Especially for Agriculture.

9. Combination of Agriculture with Manufacturing Industries; Gradual Abolition of the Distinction Between Town and Country by a More Equable Distribution of the Population over the Country.

10. Free Education for All Children in Public Schools. Abolition of Children’s Factory Labor in it’s Present Form. Combination of Education with Industrial Production.

LINK

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“The liberties of our country, the freedoms of our civil Constitution are worth defending at all hazards; it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. We have received them as a fair inheritance from our worthy ancestors. They purchased them for us with toil and danger and expense of treasure and blood. It will bring a mark of everlasting infamy on the present generation – enlightened as it is – if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle, or to be cheated out of them by the artifices of designing men.”

 -Samuel Adams”

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Obama Orders Review of Business-Stifling Regulations, But Admits the Review May Produce New Regulations

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Subtle rule by fiat?  Executive orders vs. legislation.

Definition of fiat:

–noun

1. an authoritative decree, sanction, or order: a royal fiat.

2. a formula containing the word fiat,  by which a person in

authority gives sanction.

3. an arbitrary decree or pronouncement, esp. by a person or group of persons having absolute authority

to enforce it: The king ruled by fiat.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/fiat

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Tuesday, January 18, 2011

By Susan Jones

(CNSNews.com) - Hailing America’s free-market system as “the greatest force for prosperity the world has ever known,” President Barack Obama announced that he has ordered a review of regulations that place “unreasonable burdens on business.”

The move comes a few weeks before the president is scheduled to address the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which has expressed alarm about America’s regulatory “tsunami.”

In a Wall Street Journal op-ed on Tuesday, President Obama stressed the importance of finding the “proper balance” between freedom of commerce and “common sense rules” that protect the public.

“Over the past two years, the goal of my administration has been to strike the right balance. And today, I am signing an executive order that makes clear that this is the operating principle of our government,”he wrote. [Emphasis added]

Obama said his executive order directs federal agencies to make sure that “regulations protect our safety, health and environment while promoting economic growth.” The order also requires a “government-wide review of the rules already on the books to remove outdated regulations that stifle job creation and make our economy less competitive.”

Obama said the review will eliminate overlapping rules — but he also admitted that the review may spawn new regulations, such as new safety rules for infant formula, infection-control in hospitals,and penalties for chronic violators of workplace safety laws.

“But we are also making it our mission to root out regulations that conflict, that are not worth the cost, or that are just plain dumb,” he added.

The president said the new rules will be written with input from experts, businesses and ordinary citizens. “We’re also getting rid of absurd and unnecessary paperwork requirements that waste time and money,” the president promised.

Obama said his administration’s efforts to modernize rules and regulations have led to smarter, and sometimes tougher, rules. [Emphasis added]

The op-ed comes about three weeks before President Obama is scheduled to address the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

“We look forward to this discussion about jobs and the economy,” the Chamber says on its Web site.

In an October 7, 2010 speech to the Des Moines Rotary Club, Chamber President and CEO Thomas Donohue discussed the “tsunami of government regulations” that is overwhelming the American free enterprise system.

Read more here…..

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From the George Soros funded Center for American Progress (Progressive Left think tank)

The Power of the President

Recommendations to Advance Progressive Change

November 16, 2010

The opportunity

Concentrating on executive powers presents a real opportunity for the Obama administration to turn its focus away from a divided Congress and the unappetizing process of making legislative sausage. Instead, the administration can focus on the president’s ability to deliver results for the American people on the things that matter most to them:

• Job creation and economic competitiveness
• Educational excellence
• A clean energy future and energy independence
• Quality affordable health care
• Consumer protection
• The home foreclosure crisis
• Accountable government delivering results at lower cost
• Sustainable security for the nation

In addition, the key legislative accomplishments of President Obama’s first two years in office, most notably health care and financial reform, now need to be implemented effectively. Both the Affordable Care Act and the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act require hundreds of separate rule- makings and other agency actions to implement the legislative framework.

[snip]

There is much more the president can do. The list below of ideas from the Center for American Progress’s policy experts offers just some of the many possible actions the administration can take using existing authority to move the country forward.

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Statement from John D. Podesta

November 15, 2010

In the aftermath of this month’s midterm congressional elections, pundits and politicians across the ideological spectrum are focusing on how difficult it will be for President Barack Obama to advance his policy priorities through Congress. Predictions of stalemate abound. And some debate whether the administration should tack to the left or to the center and compromise with or confront the new House leadership.

As a former White House chief of staff, I believe those to be the wrong preoccupations. President Obama’s ability to govern the country as chief executive presents an opportunity to demonstrate strength, resolve, and a capacity to get things done on a host of pressing challenges of importance to the public and our economy. Progress, not positioning, is what the public wants and deserves.

The U.S. Constitution and the laws of our nation grant the president significant authority to make and implement policy. These authorities can be used to ensure positive progress on many of the key issues facing the country through:

• Executive orders
• Rulemaking
• Agency management
• Convening and creating public-private partnerships
• Commanding the armed forces
• Diplomacy

The ability of President Obama to accomplish important change through these powers should not be underestimated. President Bush, for example, faced a divided Congress throughout most of his term in office, yet few can doubt his ability to craft a unique and deeply conservative agenda using every aspect of the policymaking apparatus at his disposal. And, after his party lost control of Congress in 1994, President Clinton used executive authority and convening power to make significant progressive change. For instance, he protected more great spaces in the lower 48 states than any president since Theodore Roosevelt, established for the first time significant protections for Americans’ medical privacy, and urged the creation of the Welfare-to-Work Partnership that enlisted the help of 20,000 businesses in moving more than 1 million welfare recipients into the workforce.

The upshot: Congressional gridlock does not mean the federal government stands still. This administration has a similar opportunity to use available executive authorities while also working with Congress where possible. At the Center for American Progress, we look forward to our nation continuing to make progress.

Link

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Ruling by fiat?

Circumventing legislation/Congress?

http://americansforprosperity.org/obamachart.php

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So the question here is: WHO is actually running this country? Soros, Podesta or Obama?

QUESTION with BOLDNESS; SPEAK without fear.

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