A new study released from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) discussed the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Clean Power Plan (CPP). Last August, the EPA released the final version of the CPP, which is projected to kill thousands of jobs, reduce GDP, and increase energy prices.

The EIA states that the CPP will mean higher prices for residential and commercial electricity, which translates over from the higher transmission and distribution costs. It is noted within the EIA study that electricity prices will increase with rising fuel costs and expenditures for electric transmission and distribution infrastructure. Also confirmed by this study is that residential and commercial electricity prices are significantly higher than industrial prices; this mainly reflects the higher costs of distribution services for residential and commercial customers.

In addition to the EIA study, multiple sources have stated that the EPA’s proposal of the CPP is harmful to economic growth and American families. The EPA’s proposal is the MOST expensive environmental regulation that has ever imposed on the electric power sector, costing at least $41 billion per year. This added expense will be especially harmful to low, middle, and fixed income families. The 60 million low and middle income households in America have witnessed a 22% decline in income and a 27% increase in energy costs; not to mention those who are dependent on Social Security, such as fixed-income seniors, are being hit the hardest by rising energy costs. Low and middle income households spend more than twice as much as high-income households for energy.

EIA projects that although energy consumption is projected to grow from 2015-2040, that higher energy prices could reduce the demand for energy. This is due to the fact that consumers will face higher energy costs if the EPA continues their over regulation. Consumers should not have to lose out on an abundance of affordable energy that America has to offer because of the Obama Administration’s and unelected bureaucrats “green” agenda. 

Charles McConnell, the former Obama Administration’s Department of Energy Fossil Fuel Director, recently told a congressional panel that the EPA’s plan of regulation is “ideological mumbo jumbo” and he states that it will NOT significantly affect global CO2 emissions. McConnell, now executive director of Rice University’s Energy and Environment Initiative, also explained that his ideology “is not against climate regulations, but against stupid regulations”, such as the Administration’s CPP plan.

A study from the Manhattan Institute points out the CPP will have no measurable impact on world climate. The study cites an EPA-sponsored climate model showing that the CPP will have an estimated impact of less than 0.01 degrees Celsius by the year 2100, which essentially is all cost and no benefit for U.S. consumers and businesses

Supporters of the EPA proposal ultimately argue that the U.S. must play a leadership role in reducing CO2 emissions. The EIA claims the initial impact of the CPP was to lower CO2 emissions; however, the EIA fails to mention the increase in CO2 emissions from emerging nations such as China, India, and Asian nations.  With the large amount of added expenses the CPP will burden consumers and businesses with; one would expect the CPP would have larger effects on domestic CO2 emissions.  Once again, we have failed leadership from our Administration that will only hurt, not help, American families and businesses.

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Nanny-staters are at it again. Heat Street reports that the government’s latest overregulation grab takes aim at Pokemon Go. Elected officials want to regulate the nation’s latest fad, the augmented-reality game Pokemon Go, rather than address real pressing issues our nation faces, like our rising national debt or our unsustainable criminal justice system. Felix Ortiz, Democratic New York Assemblyman, has claimed that the game brings about numerous public safety concerns and should be addressed with regulations.

Ortiz, an established “nanny-stater”, has a history of proposing too many unnecessary and unimportant regulations surrounding personal matters and choices. His past proposed regulations include banning salt in restaurants, taxing alcohol and sugary drinks, and banning admission to strip clubs. Why one’s guilty pleasure, be it a Dirty Martini or Pokemon Go, matters to the government is ludicrous.

Other critics trying to impose regulations on Pokemon Go include Senator Al Fraken, who questioned Niantic about how much information is being collected from users.

Pokemon Go has had many positive effects, all of which has been neglected. Users have reported significant spikes in their physical activity, and many have been given a reason to explore the area where they live. In fact, the employees at Cardiogram, an app for Apple Watch, found that 45 percent of users playing Pokemon Go were exercising 30 or more minutes on the day of the launch and that people were walking 62.5 percent more on the weekend after the launch than past weekends. 

Technology, its advances, and effects on personal lives hold no place in the government. Rather than focus on miniscule and irrationally drawn out “concerns” on the nation’s latest fad game, the government should focus on real issues and finding real solutions. No wonder why 3 out of 4 millennials have such a big distrust of government.

Obamacare drastically increased both federal spending as well as the costs of health insurance. In order to disguise the costs to American families, the law has relied on a web of confusing spending programs, subsidies, and taxes.

Among these programs are the reinsurance, risk corridors and risk adjustment programs which redistribute funds from different groups directly to Obamacare insurers. In the case of reinsurance, this took the form of a fee on each individual with private health insurance to raise $25 billion, including $5 billion that would go back to taxpayers via the Treasury general fund.

In practice the reinsurance program has failed to work as promised, like so many other parts of the law. As a result, the Obama Department of Health and Human Services has funneled money from treasury’s general fund in direct violation of federal law. As announced earlier this year, Obamacare insurance companies would receive $7.7 billion through the reinsurance program – $6 billion obtained from a fee on private health insurance and $1.7 billion taken from the Treasury general fund. Because HHS did the same last year, this means a total of $3.5 billion has been stolen from taxpayers using the reinsurance program.

This decision clearly violates federal law. Section 1341 of Obamacare, which establishes reinsurance, explicitly allocates taxpayer dollars that “shall be deposited into the general fund of the Treasury of the United States and may not be used for the [reinsurance] program established under this section.”

A memo released by analysts at the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service found that federal law “unambiguously” states funds must be deposited into the Treasury general fund. Similarly, former White House Counsel C. Boyden Gray called the diverting of funds “unlawful” and questioned how it could possibly withstand legal scrutiny.

Despite this, the administration shows no signs of returning taxpayer funds. To force these funds to be returned, Congressman Mark Walker (R-N.C) recently introduced the “Taxpayers Before Insurers Act,” legislation that stops the Obama administration from illegally bailing out insurance companies through redirecting taxpayers funds to the Obamacare reinsurance slush fund. Companion legislation has also been introduced in the Senate by Senator Ben Sasse (R-NE).

This pro-taxpayer legislation forces the Obama Department of Health and Human Services to obey the law and return billions in funds to their rightful owner – the American people. If they fail to do so, the legislation strips HHS of billions in taxpayer funds.

This is just one of many cases where the federal government has utilized wasteful or illegal subsidies and payments to keep Obamacare afloat.  In the past few years, the government has stolen a total of $8.5 billion in taxpayer dollars to illegally fund Obamacare through programs like reinsurance, and the law has provided more than $170 billion in corporate welfare payments to special interests.

The fact is, the $3.5 billion in Obamacare reinsurance corporate welfare payments are merely the latest effort by the administration to ignore the law to the benefit of monied special interests. Members of Congress should stop this latest cash grab and support Congressman Walker’s Taxpayers Before Insurers Act.

This week, President Obama’s top scientific advisor, John Holdren, bucked the Administration’s growing opposition to natural gas, stating that the “Keep-It-In-the-Ground” movement was “unrealistic.” It is clear that Holdren, who is the Assistant to the President for Science and Technology and Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, realizes the integral role reliable energy sources such as natural gas play, unlike some of his Administration counterparts who are beholden to far left ideology.

The Administration’s goal has been to continually drive affordable and reliable energy sources out of the market, through the use of executive policies and high-ended taxes. This goal is much in line with the ideology of the Keep-it-in-the-Ground movement, that opposes traditional energy sources. However, the Administration is wrong for demonizing traditional energy. When discussing energy policy, ridding the world of abundant, cost-effective, and reliable energy sources should not be a goal.

The increasing role of natural gas in America has been to create jobs, reduce energy costs, and do so with a lessened environmental impact, which may be a point some on the left like to ignore. Holdren however, has not been scared to tout the benefits of natural gas, much to the likely dismay of the President. Clearly it would be a good idea if our President spent a little more time listening to his staff and less focusing on his “green” legacy.

The irony of the disconnect between President Obama and his top advisor on reliable energy sources is that Obama was not always a student of the Keep-it-in-the-Ground Ideology. In 2013 President Obama remarked that:

“We’ve got to tap into this natural gas revolution that’s bringing energy costs down in this country, which means manufacturers now want to locate here because they’re thinking that we’ve got durable, reliable supplies of energy.”

The economic pain on taxpayers, energy consumers, and businesses can be felt from our current Administration’s regressive, anti-growth energy policies. Overregulation and subsidization are the two biggest problems with our current U.S. energy policies.

We need a government that will allow for the free market to decide and not depend on taxpayers to have to be responsible for the federal government’s irresponsible spending and regulation. Holdren’s comment on natural gas comes as the Administration seems intent on waging further war on affordable energy in the last year of his tenure as President. 

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