With less than a year left in his presidency, President Obama is looking to leave yet another harmful legacy behind. With the use of executive agencies such as the EPA, Obama is trying to carry out his own agenda with the help of the unelected EPA bureaucrats.
In the last year, the EPA has been over-regulating large quantities of energy sources, most of which are relied on by for low to middle-income families. Not only does over-regulation harm many American families by ignoring the fight to keep abundant low cost energy options, but it also creates a new problem: job loss and economic downfall. It is clearly abundantly clear that the bureaucrats of the EPA and our President are on a self-guided mission to increase costs to consumers, tax payers, and the energy industries.
With the new mandates of the Methane Rule, energy producers will now be forced to install expensive equipment on new operations, the costs of which will inevitably be passed onto consumers in the form of higher energy rates. Once again, we see that our government is out of touch and out of date with technology and innovation.
Even though gas production has increased by 44% in recent years, the energy industry has decreased methane emissions. By businesses making investments and innovation in new technology, methane emissions from the oil and natural gas sector have decreased by 12%, with the largest reductions coming from natural gas recovery sites, which have decreased methane by 73%.
To continue to allow businesses, especially in the energy industry, to provide low cost services to low and middle-income families, we must have a government that does not seek to over-regulate and overtax its citizens. Washington’s lawmakers need to realize that the Methane Rule has an underlying agenda that will harm more than help taxpayers and industries. Furthermore, President Obama’s “one-size fits all” style government regulatory regime must be rained in before any further damage is done.
Photo Credit: José Luís Agapito