The Environmental Protection Agency is supposed to be reviewing almost a million public comments on their proposed new mercury regulations for power plants. The final regulation isn't set to be issued until next Friday. But according to President Obama's reelection website, the EPA has already acted:
Under President Obama’s watch, the Environmental Protection Agency has set up the first national standards for mercury emissions and other dangerous chemicals from coal and oil-fired power plants.
The new rules will help to clear our skies of pollutants that can make health problems like asthma and bronchitis worse, saving up to 17,000 lives each year.
These new power plant regulations will be a disaster for the economy according to the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC). NERC released a study last week predicting that "the nation's power grid will be stressed in ways never before experienced" if the regulations go into effect.
"Early retirement of multiple units in the short-run could stress the bulk power system if plans are not in place to add additional resources to cover the loss of generation from facilities affected by EPA regulations," the NERC report reads. NERC warns that grid operators may see "reduced system stability, tighter flexibility margins, and problems with deliverability of resources."
If the EPA has already made the decision to adopt the proposed rule, as evidenced by the Obama campaign website, then they could not have possibly taken into account the concerns raised by NERC's recent report.
Just as with the Keystone XL pipeline, Obama's political operation is making a clear choice to choose environmentalist votes and money at the expense of working-class voters. The Utility Workers of America, which is affiliated with the ALF-CIO, says the Utility MACT rule will EPA rules will "devastate Michigan's economy."
