The EPA's Planned Destruction of the U.S. Economy

By Alan Caruba

If there was no other reason to defeat President Obama in November, it would be the planned destruction of what is left of the U.S. economy by the Environmental Protection Agency.

In “A Look Ahead to EPA Regulations for 2012” the minority staff (Republican) of the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works has issued a chilling review of a massive rise in the costs of living for all Americans, massive layoffs in all sectors of the economy, and the destruction of the nation’s energy and manufacturing sectors.

The report provides a nightmarish look at the regulations that EPA plans to initiate, having put them under cover prior to Election Day in order to hide President Obama’s agenda of attacking the energy sector and businesses large and small.

Here’s a list of the regulations:

Greenhouse gas regulation via the Clean Air Act

An Ozone rule

Hydraulic Fracturing

Florida’s Numeric Nutrient Criteria

EPA’s water guidance under the Clean Water Act

Stormwater regulation

Tier II Gas regulations

Boiler MACT rule

Cement MACT rule

316(b) Cooling Tower rule

Coal ash

Farm dust regulation

Spill prevention control and Countermeasure rule

These proposed regulations in aggregate, if enacted—that is to say if not stopped by congressional action based on Republican control of both the House and Senate—would prove disastrous, starting in 2013.

For example, the utterly bogus greenhouse gas regulations are based on the debunked global warming theory that says too much carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere is causing the Earth to heat when, in fact, the Earth has been cooling since 1998 and there is zero evidence that CO2 has any impact on the temperature of the planet.

The greenhouse gas regulations would, the report estimates, “cost more than $300 to $400 billion a year, and significantly raise the price of gas at the pump and energy in the home. It’s not just coal plants that will be affected: Under the Clean Air Act, churches, schools, restaurants, hospitals and farms will eventually be regulated.”

If you love poverty, you will love what the EPA intends to impose on the nation.

One astonishingly stupid aspect of greenhouse gas regulation is called the “cow tax” in which ranchers will be required to pay a cost-per-animal permitting fee. More than 37,000 farms and ranches would be subject to greenhouse gas permits at an average cost of $23,000 per permit annually. It would affect more than 90% of the livestock production in America and drive the cost of meat and pork out of sight.

As to regulating ozone, the EPA itself “estimated that its ozone standard would cost $90 billion a year, while other studies have projected that the rule would cost upwards of a trillion dollars and destroy 7.4 million jobs.” Ozone is created and destroyed naturally in the atmosphere by the sun. It is most noticeable over the poles where it has waxed and waned for billions of years.  So-called ozone holes show up over active volcanoes. Apparently the EPA wants to regulate the sun and volcanoes.

The technology of hydraulic fracturing occurs well below the water levels and frees up access to natural gas and oil. Naturally, many agencies in the Obama administration are doing whatever they can to shut it down with costly permit and efforts to link it to water contamination. It holds the promise of driving down energy costs nationwide.

If President Obama is reelected, billions of dollars would be imposed on virtually every aspect of life in America, either directly or through the rise of the cost of everything. This reflects the Greens obsession with destroying the greatest economy the world has ever seen, our standards of living and the quality of life for every man, woman and child in America.

© Alan Caruba, 2012