The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) summarizes some major Obama Administration regulations (economically significant rules that impose annual costs of $100 million or more) that are soon to be released. These are largely rules written earlier this year but held up because they were potential liabilities for the Obama presidential campaign. Now that he has won re-election, its Katy bar the door. This posting will feature those that affect energy. There are others that will also have a very big impact such as Obamacare. The WSJ’s summary of those can be seen by clicking here.
The Obama Administration’s war on fossil fuels goes on. Fracking is not safe even though it has the potential of lifting the economy out of the dole drums. One has to wonder where the President’s priorities lie. Is it bring about a recovery or to bring about a socialist state?
The WSJ Energy Rules Summary:
• Energy. In the lead-up to November, the Environmental Protection Agency stood down under White House pressure, delaying rules for ozone air quality and industrial boilers, and deferring carbon standards. Now EPA chief Lisa Jackson has the run of the place.
She will resume the Administration’s anti-carbon agenda through “new source performance standards,” which will set greenhouse gas emissions for new power plants so low as to prevent their construction. Look for this early in 2013.
She’ll follow with standards for “existing” sources that make coal-fired plants uneconomic to run. Inside of a decade, Ms. Jackson may wipe out what used to make up more than half of U.S. power generation. Environmentalists will write books about it, even if her agenda has received almost no public scrutiny or debate.
The oil and gas industry is also targeted, hydraulic fracturing (fracking) in particular. The EPA has already issued a rule on shale production emissions and has one coming on diesel fuel in fracking. The Interior Department is promulgating rules on fracking on federal lands, and other rules can’t be far behind, probably using the pretext of drinking water under the Clean Water Act.
The EPA’s sleeper issue is the National Enforcement Initiatives agenda, which is designed to use the agency’s existing legal powers for inspections, requests for information, penalties and so forth to make new de facto rules. The EPA now blackmails businesses into “super compliance,” or settlements far more stringent than the law requires, or else risk years of expensive litigation.
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Climate Change Sanity 