OBAMA INITIATES COAL-KILLING POLICIES DURING GREAT RECESSION!
“Under my plan of a cap and trade system electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket. Businesses would have to retrofit their operations. That will cost money. They will pass that cost onto consumers.”
Senator Barack Obama
Speaking on Cap and Trade
San Francisco Chronicle
January 17, 2008
In 2008 Barack Obama admitted during an interview with The San Francisco Chronicle that his cap and trade legislation would cause electricity prices to skyrocket and would kill the coal industry:
Obama admitted that cap and trade will likely cost $700 to $1,400 dollars per US family per year.
Today the Obama Administration began their assault on the American coal industry.
The New York Times reported, via Astute Bloggers:
Acting under federal court order, the Obama administration proposed new air-quality rules on Tuesday for coal-burning power plants that officials said would bring major reductions in soot and smog from Texas to the Eastern Seaboard.
The Environmental Protection Agency is issuing the rules to replace a plan from the administration of President George W. Bush that a federal judge threw out in 2008, citing numerous flaws in the calculation of air-quality effects.
Gina McCarthy, head of the E.P.A.’s air and radiation office, said the new rules would reduce emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides by hundreds of thousands of tons a year and bring $120 billion in annual health benefits. Those benefits, Ms. McCarthy said, include preventing 14,000 to 36,000 premature deaths, 23,000 nonfatal heart attacks, 21,000 cases of acute bronchitis, 240,000 cases of aggravated asthma and 1.9 million missed school and work days.
The rule would substantially reduce the unhealthy smog that shrouds American cities, especially during heat waves like the one now enveloping much of the East.
The cost of compliance to utilities and other operators of smog-belching power plants would be $2.8 billion a year, according to E.P.A. estimates.
“This is attempting to give people cleaner air to breathe,” Ms. McCarthy said.
Of course, that $2.8 billion will be passed on to the American consumer each year. As Obama said in 2008, these new policies will necessarily cause electricity costs to skyrocket.
And just think… It seems like it was just yesterday when Barack Obama was praising the coal industry at a West Virginia coal miner memorial knowing that these policies were on the table.
Disgusting.
