WSJ
President Obama's climate speech on Tuesday was grandiose even for him, but its
surreal nature was its particular hallmark. Some 12 million Americans still
can't find work, real wages have fallen for five years, three-fourths of
Americans now live paycheck to check, and the economy continues to plod along
four years into a quasi-recovery. But there was the President in tony
Georgetown, threatening more energy taxes and mandates that will ensure fewer
jobs, still lower incomes and slower growth.
Mr. Obama's "climate action plan" adds up to one of the most
extensive reorganizations of the U.S. economy since the 1930s, imposed through
administrative fiat and raw executive power. He wants to reduce greenhouse gas
emissions by 17% by 2020, but over his 6,500-word address he articulated no
such goal for the unemployment rate or GDP.
The plan covers everything from new efficiency standards for home appliances to
new fuel mileage rules for heavy-duty trucks to new subsidies for wind farms,
but the most consequential changes would slam the U.S. electric industry. These
plants, coal-fired power in particular, account for about a third of domestic
greenhouse gases.
Last year the Environmental Protection Agency released "new source
performance standard" regulations that are effectively a moratorium on new
coal plants. The EPA denied that similar rules would ever apply to the existing
fleet, or even that they were working up such rules. Now Mr. Obama will unleash
his carbon central planners on current plants. …To Read More….
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