The Obama administration is rushing to finalize regulations that will effectively kill coal power in America, the Washington Examiner reported:
President Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency has devoted an unprecedented number of bureaucrats to finalizing new anti-coal regulations that are set to be released at the end of November, according to a source inside the EPA.
More than 50 EPA staff are now crashing to finish greenhouse gas emission standards that would essentially ban all construction of new coal-fired power plants. Never before have so many EPA resources been devoted to a single regulation. The independent and non-partisan Manhattan Institute estimates that the EPA’s greenhouse gas coal regulation will cost the U.S. economy $700 billion.
The rush is a major sign of panic by environmentalists inside the Obama administration. If Obama wins, the EPA would have another four full years to implement their anti-fossil fuel agenda. But if Romney wins, regulators will have a very narrow window to enact a select few costly regulations that would then be very hard for a President Romney to undo.
The same Manhattan Institute report also notes that the new EPA regulations will not actually cut greenhouse gas emissions and that new coal power plants are clean by the usual EPA standards.
The Virginia Department of Mines, Minerals, and Energy points out coal’s importance to Virginia’s energy profile:
Coal is the most valuable single mineral resource produced in Virginia, with an estimated value in 2006 totaling $1.7 billion. During 2006, about 29.5 million short tons of coal was mined. … Virginia consistently ranks among the top ten coal-producing states in the nation, making it an important contributor to the U.S. energy profile.
Virginia Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell has complained in the past to the Washington Free Beacon about the Obama administration’s energy policies:
"Stop coming up with silly and unbalanced policies that hurt the ability of Virginia to use all of its God-given natural resources."