Group issues scathing review of Obama EPA’s record of job destruction
CHARLESTON – A report by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) – an association of state legislators – says the Obama EPA is out of control and is “creating regulatory chaos, stagnating investment … [and] destroying jobs.”
“During the past couple of years, the [EPA] has undertaken the most expansive regulatory assault in history on the production and distribution of affordable and reliable energy,” the ALEC researcher team says. “As of 2010, EPA regulations promulgated under the Obama Administration had already surpassed the Agency’s regulatory output in the entire first term of Bill Clinton, which was a period in which the EPA had just been handed broad new powers. With 30 major regulations and more than 170 policy rules still being finalized in the next five years, the extent of EPA’s actions could surpass its entire 40-year history of regulation.”
The result, ALEC researchers say, is the shutdown of power plants across the nation, skyrocketing energy costs, decreasing reliability of the electrical grid and the loss of millions of jobs at a time the nation can least afford it. All of this will be handed to the American taxpayer along with a bill for the cost of implementation running into the tens of billions and downstream costs in the tens of billions annually.
West Virginia Coal Association Senior Vice President Chris Hamilton says the findings outlined in the ALEC study are further proof that the Obama Administration through the EPA has engaged in an all-out assault against the coal industry at all points – by land, sea and air – from production all the way through the economy to consumption by electric utilities and the rates paid by consumers at home.
“We have to bring an end to this insanity,” Hamilton said. “We have to come together and end this assault by the Obama Administration and the EPA on the working people of this nation.”
Hamilton said the first step must be passage in the U.S. Senate of a collection of bills that have already passed the House, including HR 2018 and the REINS Act, as well as getting the Inhofe CRA (S.R.J. 37) passed and rolling back EPA regulations that are shutting down coal-fired power plants across the country and putting coal miners out of work.
The report indicates that a broad coalition of 32 current and former governors, 27 organizations of state and local officials, 16 labor unions, 17 state legislatures, 10 state agencies and 57 trade associations has come together to fight the overreach of the Obama EPA.
For more information and to get a copy of the report, visit the ALEC website at http://www.alec.org/initiatives/epas-regulatory-train-wreck/
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