Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) released a 14 page report detailing stifling regulations planned by the EPA that will continue to thwart economic growth and kill jobs. This represents yet another gross overreach by the EPA and their obsession in continuing to try and drive up the costs of energy on average Americans. Listed in the report are a number of regulatory measures that are to being “punted” until after the election. They include:
Greenhouse Gas Regulations: These rules will cost more than $300 to $400 billion a year, and significantly raise the price of gas at the pump and energy at home. It’s not coal plants that will be affected: Under the Clean Air Act (CAA), churches, schools restaurants, hospitals, and farms will eventually be regulated.
Ozone Rule: The administration wants to tighten the ozone standard which the EPA itself estimated that its ozone standard would costs $90 billion a year while other studies have projected that the rule could cost upwards of a trillion dollars and destroy 7.4 million jobs.
Hydraulic Fracturing: In order to curtail hydraulic fracturing on public lands, BLM under Secretary Salazar’s control, will be finalizing new regulations sometime after the election, which will have serious impacts on domestic energy production. Costs estimates range from $1.4 billion to $1.615 billion annually.
Florida Numeric Nutrient Criteria: In 2009, EPA issues a Clean Water Act (CWA) determination that it would set federal numeric nutrient water quality standards in Florida. These standards were criticized for being technologically and economically infeasible.
EPA Water Guidance: Proposed new guidance document for waters covered by the CWA, proposed in April 2011, reinterprets recent Supreme Court decision to allow EPA to expand federal control over virtually every body of water in the United States no matter how small.
Stormwater Regulation: EPA proposed to expand the universe of federally regulated stormwater. This places enormous cost burdens on state and municipalities and on anyone who owns property or wants to develop property. If the final rule does everything EPA has proposed, it could be the most expensive rule in EPA history.
Tier III Gas Regulations: EPA is preparing to propose a rulemaking called Tier III, which reduces the content of sulfer in gasoline from 30 ppm to 10 ppm. The estimated costs could be $10 billion initially and $2.4 billion annually, and it could add up to 9 cents per gallon in manufacturing costs; these would inevitably be passed on to consumer at the pump.
Boiler MACT Rule: EPA’s Boiler MACT standards are so strict that not even the best performing sources can meet them, so companies will have no choice but to shut their doors and ship manufacturing jobs oversees. The rule has been projected to reduce US GDP by as much as 1.2 billion dollars and will destroy nearly 800,000 jobs.
Cement MACT Rule: Current Cement MACT rule could cause 18 plants to shut down, throwing up to 80,000 people out of work. As more and more cement has to be imported from China, concrete costs for the construction of roads, bridges, and buildings that use cement could increase 22% to 36%.
316 (b) Cooling Towers Rule: EPA is planning to require the use of strict protections for fish in cooling reservoirs for power plants under the Clean Water Act. EPA’s own estimates put the draft rule costs between $384 million and $460 million per year and have benefits of just $17 million-a cost benefit gap of more than 22 to 1.
Farm Dust Regulation: If National Ambient Air Quality Standards for coarse particular matter are tightened, farmers will have to curb everyday farm activities, which could mean could mean cutting down on numbers of livestock or the tilling of fields, or they may have to shrink or even end their business altogether.
Spill Prevention Control and Countermeasure (SPCC) Rule: This would require farmers and ranchers to develop and implement costly oil and gasoline prevention plans, placing tremendous burden on the agricultural community.
Coal Ash: The EPA proposes coal ash rule that could cost $70 to $110 billion over 20 years, destroying 183,900 to 316,000 jobs; this will have disastrous impacts in states like Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio and Missouri.
The Obama campaign has tried to talk-up their energy policy claiming, “the President has doubled fuel-efficiency standards so cars and trucks ‘will go farther on a gallon of gas, helped double our production of job-creating clean wind and solar energies and has championed an all-of-the-above American energy strategy.’" Unfortunately the last four years have been anything but a triumph for American energy. This administration’s energy legacy will be that of shady crony capitalist deals that reward campaign contributors like Solyndra at the expense of taxpayers.
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