Monday, July 12, 2010

EPA Goes Ape Over Power Plant Emissions


By Alan Caruba

Not a day goes by without our being told that something is going to kill us. Much of what kills people is genetic; little time bombs in our DNA that determine the state of our health.

Anyone who reads the daily obituaries knows that Americans are living longer than any previous generation. Most of the population is dying of nothing more sinister than old age.

The diseases that kill Americans have been quantified and known for decades. At the top of the list is heart disease, followed by a variety of different kinds of cancers. Third in line are strokes. Chronic lower respiratory diseases such as asthma are next, but nothing more than accidents kill as many people.

The remaining factors include diabetes, Alzheimer’s, pneumonia, nephritis (kidney diseases), and septicemia, a disease of the blood.

What do Americans really die from? Genetic dispositions to illness. Accidents. Poor diets. And bad lifestyle choices that include smoking, drinking, and taking illegal drugs.

With the exception of asthma that affects about seven percent of the population none of this has anything to do with air quality. Indeed, the causes of asthma remain somewhat shrouded in mystery even if the symptoms do not.

None of this empirical knowledge and data has the slightest effect, however, on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the American Lung Association that profits greatly from any claims about air quality. Both are inclined to making wild claims.

In early July, the EPA announced proposed cuts in “pollution from power plants in 31 states and D.C.” This is not about air quality. It is part of the long-term attack on all sources of power in America, but most particularly the coal-fired plants that provide just over fifty percent of all the electricity on which Americans depend for everything!

Depriving Americans of electricity would trigger a tsunami of deaths in the form of heat stroke in the summer months or freezing in the cold of winter. That, however, is the actual objective of the EPA and the many environmental organizations that wage ceaseless propaganda campaigns and endless law suits whose sole purpose is to deprive Americans of this vital source of power.

The EPA claims that infinitesimal particulates from power plant emissions, specifically sulfur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen oxides (NOx) “harms the health of people “living downwind” of power plants. They propose reducing such emissions by 71 percent over 2005 levels of SO2 and fifty-two percent of NOx.

This is in line with the crazed and fraudulent claim that carbon dioxide (CO2) is causing global warming and thus requires the huge tax on energy sources, the Cap-and-Trade Act making its way through Congress.

The claims are the typical exaggerations of all proposed government regulations. The EPA claims that their latest action would yield “more than $120 billion in annual health benefits in 2014, including avoiding an estimated 14,000 to 36,000 premature deaths, 23,000 nonfatal heart attacks, 21,000 cases of acute bronchitis, 240,000 aggravated asthma, and 1.9 million days when people miss school or work due to ozone-and-particle pollution-related symptoms.”

There’s a very impolite word to describe these kinds of statistics.

They are the same kind of statistics the Obama administration has been conjuring while it blew through a trillion dollar “stimulus” program with no real effect on the economy. These are the same kind of vacuous statistics behind the promise of new jobs, the takeover of healthcare, one-sixth of the nation’s economy, the takeover of the auto industry, et cetera!

Everyone wants clean air. The effort to achieve it began over three decades ago and it has been a success at the same time the U.S. gross domestic product increased 156 percent, vehicle miles traveled increased 143 percent, energy consumption increased 45 percent, and the population increased 36 percent.

Cracking down on coal-fired plants is a political act. It has no relation whatever to any need to reduce particulates for the general population.

When the American Lung Association talks of preventing “tens of thousands of premature deaths each year” it is engaged in the worst kind of exaggeration and fear-mongering.

Because Americans are rightly concerned with issues involving jobs, mortgages, auto payments, and all the real threats to their well-being, the EPA knows it can sneak through draconian regulations that, in normal times, would be and should be stopped in their tracks.

The EPA and environmental organizations are the enemy of economic recovery. They are the true cancer on the body politic.

© Alan Caruba, 2010

4 comments:

Carolyn said...

Hi Mr. Caruba. The only thing killing me and my family, are these unGodly earth worshiping tree huggers. Actually, I shouldn't even call them tree huggers- because once they cut out carbon, won't the trees die? There is so much that is wrong with government and all their tenticles. People are hurting, but hey- lets save the three toed frogs and swamp mice.
God Bless you Mr. Caruba. I sometimes get a little depressed reading your blog, but I am glad you tell about all this stuff and keep people informed.

Alan Caruba said...

Well, one thing's for sure, Carolyn, I don't have to ask you to keep the faith!

If you get depressed reading about what's going on in the government these days, so are a lot of other people, but the job of a journalist is to offer the facts and let you and others make up their minds.

This is definately a dark time in our nation's history. I have to believe it will be set right again by the PEOPLE.

PatriotUSA said...

We all want a cleaner enviroment.
As you noted here it is not coal
that is killing us Americans.
Rather, it is THIS administration
that is killing Americans with massive debt, taxation and
crippling, long term policies
that will cost this country
thousands of jobs. The attack on
coal is a liberal knee jerk
reaction that will cost us
dearly. Where I live, we have
ONE, One coal fired plant and
the the democrats that have long
ruled this state(Oregon)have
a 'green' policy on the residents.
It has NOT created jobs and has
had horrible cost overruns and
been abused by other states due
to an insane business tax break
for any 'business' that has a
prsence in Oregon. They are
forcing us to pay to remove
dams that produce power and
now are forcing the only coal plant to be
shuttered by 2015.

We, the people of Oregon did
not get to vote on these stupid
ideas and policies. I plan on
NOT paying these taxes as that
is what they truly are. Just
called by another name and
slid in by deceptive means.

Mr. Caruba, you have an
excellent site here and I
use your articles quite often.
I always leave links back to
here and give you FULL and
complete credit. Do not waver
as I agree with you 100%:

"This is definately a dark time
in our nation's history. I have
to believe it will be set
right again by the PEOPLE."

We must not fail. That is all
there is to this.

Rich Kozlovich said...

Alan,

Everything we are told should bear some resemblance to what we see going on in reality....and you really nailed it with this article. Great job.

Rich