Environment, Politics, Science, Society

Industry Launches Campaign Against Closing Outdated Power Plants

Industry lobbyists and political allies are launching a full court press against the closure of highly polluting coal-fired plants across the United States this month. The effort dovetails with the focus of Republican candidates like Bachmann, Gingrich, and Perry to demonize the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and even call for its elimination. However, this move has been delayed too long and is expected to save thousands of lives. The story is the latest example of how industry is able to treat such health risks as abstractions while fighting to keep such plants operating.

The EPA is attempting to curb the plethora of dangerous pollutants from these outmoded plants, including mercury, smog, ozone, and greenhouse gases.

The Edison Electric Institute and the American Legislative Exchange Council are taking the lead in fighting such efforts — insisting that it will cost utilities up to $129 billion. The reason this effort deserves attention is that it is coming during an election where the EPA has become a central campaign issue. It seems no accident that some political operatives are flogging the issue as industry ramps up to try to get Congress to block the EPA’s effort to protect public health.

The Congressional Research Service has issued a report that seriously questions the industry claims of a “train wreck” caused by the regulation. Many of these plants were grandfathered in under the Clean Air Act and about two-thirds do not even have scrubbers — a lack of abatement technology that is more often found in third world countries. CRS noted that many are no longer competitive and probably would have to be replaced anyway.

However, it is the health benefits that are the most impressive — and shockingly ignored by critics. The EPA estimates that just an “air-transport rule to clamp down on smog” will prevent 21,000 cases of bronchitis and 23,000 heart attacks — and save 36,000 lives. There could be as much as $290 billion in health benefits.

What is striking is how “family oriented” politicians often ignore the harm done to children and families from pollution. This should be a no-brainer for a developed nation to force the closure of such outdated plants. It is not like the industry did not have plenty of time to deal with these facilities. Many opposed the protection previously given the plants, which have now had decades of operation below accepted environmental standards.

I also fail to understand why the Administration has not fought harder and more directly on this issue — emphasizing the lives and health of the public in the debate. Again, it appears like the Administration seems almost timid in supporting such efforts. It has again allowed the industry to initially frame and control the debate. While I have been highly critical of some of the decisions of President Obama, this is one that he should point to with pride and use as a critical distinguishing policy with his opponents.

Here is the report from the Congressional Research Service: CRS-EPA

Source: Washington Post

24 thoughts on “Industry Launches Campaign Against Closing Outdated Power Plants”

  5. Tootie,
    Left wing dirt bags who copulate like dogs??? What evidence do you have that left wingers like myself are copulating like dogs? A little hyperbole maybe?

  7. $15 Tootie – you are assisting in the murder of unborn zygotes left & right today.You obviously are happy doing it. All you have to do to stop participating in this murder is stop posting insane rants & try speaking like a human.

  9. This is a symptom of a culture obsessed with the next quarter’s profits. Research and infrastructure maintenance are expensive. It looks better on the short term books to keep putting off repairs and upgrades.

  10. Carol Levy

    What you don’t like is that people like me take care of their own children whom they bring into the world and while at the same time we expect left-wing dirt bags who copulate like dogs in the streets and pigs in a sty to take of their own. And they say that right wingers are the stupid ones? Then how come they have enough sense to take care of their own?

    I would have given left-wingers, who mindlessly breed like cockroaches and rats then wonder why they have children they don’t want, a chance to solve the problem of their mindless monkey-love breeding habits by taxing the public (e.g. yours truly) to take care of their orphans though the public schools. That way they could even indoctrinate the little waifs with their criminal values like Marxism instead of murdering the poor little organisms.

    But things have moved along far down the continuum now and I support the abolition of our fascist totalitarian “public schools”.

    So the opportunity for Democrats to stop murdering humans through abortion by taxing me for orphanages has passed.

    So be it. God will judge between me and the murderous Democrats.

  11. “What is striking is how “family oriented” politicians often ignore the harm done to children and families from pollution.”
    Shouldn’t be striking. They only care about life until it is born – then the heck with it, the heck withthe costs associated with children born with birth defects, etc.
    And BTW 3% of planned parenthood goes to abortion services guess you would prefer that rape victims, victims of incest, those who cannot go through with a preganncy for emotional/physical reasons should be forced too anyway. After all women are already born and living. (And thwe Hyde amendmend prohibits any federal funding from going to that 3% – fed $ goes to sex education, birth control and birth control counseling but again these folks are alive. Who cares if they get pregnant because they had no place to go to get contraception or education about it that they could afford?
    (and the same for the poor, let them go curl up in a corner on the sidewalk)
    Uniniformed opinions are not worth much, Tootie. You do not care about life when you only care about it when it is in the womb.

  12. AY,
    Hilarious Batman clip!
    It is amazing how successful the Right is at actually endangering millions in order that a few can make Millions.

  13. The depth of the seriousness of the pollution industry crowd cannot be understood unless and until the reality of the ongoing global war for oil is understood.

    These seemingly political skirmishes to kill EPA and all it stands for, are only back eddies of the mentality that will most surely commence the almost forgotten specter of nuclear war.

    At the core Amygdala of this mentality is criminal insanity.

  14. Will the Koch Crime Syndicate allow this to happen: Stay Tuned to the Same Bat Channel…..

    Will Bruce Wayne ever be the same……

  15. I hope they win. I’m not sure what it is going to take for the USofA to FINALLY be self critical and admit that the experiment is over.

    Constitutional Democracy is worth another go, maybe, with compusory voting, politicised “justice” removed and the concept of “Liberty” transformed from it’s current outrageous, wasteful selfishness.

    I also donate to Planned Parenthood, from Australia.

  16. I’m sure they appreciate that you just made it $10. The donations stop just as soon as your crazy level drops to near normal human levels. You want to post insane bullshit like that first post then there is no sense trying to reason with you or have an exchange of ideas. Instead you are complicity in the murder of unborn children (in what we shall call for lack of a better term, a mind).

  18. Oh and Nuttie – thats another $5 for Planned Parenthood, donated in your name.

  19. This is not unlike the bullshit we have to put up with over oil refineries. Currently the US has a surplus capacity to refine oil but any time the government moves to require safer operation they start whining about how they won’t be able to produce enough fuel. And every time there is a spike in gas prices bloated gasbags tell the morans that the reason is Federal interference preventing the building of new refineries.

    If the majority of voters ever figure out they are being had there may one day be the real prospect of an industry actually being prevented from creating energy when needed. Like the boy who cried wolf though, it will be their own damn fault.

  20. If the power plants shut down left wingers won’t have enough electricity to get on their computers and TV to promote porn, deviance, war, murder, and bring down the industrial and communications revolution, and conduct worldwide mayhem.

    If they cared about children (they don’t) they will not urge the close down of these plants. Because if they are closed people will have to unplug their homes from the grid since they won’t be able to afford electricity. So much for the poor. They won’t be able to heat their homes, food, or water. They won’t be able to wash their clothes except by hand. They won’t be able to live a modern life.

    This is the mentality of the progressive: always backwards, retrograde, and hateful of the human race.

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