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    Organization Warns of EPA 'Regulatory Avalanche'

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    The Texas Public Policy Foundation is warning of an "approaching regulatory avalanche" in a report. The foundation says new rules in the works by the Environmental Protection Agency could cost billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of jobs. Here are the details of the report.

    * EPA rules scheduled to take effect over the next three years could cost $1 trillion, the report -- authored by Kathleen Hartnett White, the director of the Armstrong Center for Energy and Environment and former commissioner and chair of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality -- stated. Four of the rules will threaten the viability of coal-fired electric generation with a loss of up to 8 percent of the country's current electric generating capacity.

    * According to Hartnett White, the EPA is misusing the Clean Air Act, which was enacted to protect human health, to force an anti-fossil fuel energy policy. The report studies the effects of 10 new rules adopted, proposed or scheduled for proposal.

    * According to the EPA, the Clean Air Act authorizes the agency to establish National Ambient Air Quality Standards to protect the public health and welfare by regulating air emissions. The regulations target six common air pollutants, including carbon monoxide, ground-level ozone, lead, nitrogen oxides, particulate matter and sulfur dioxide.

    * The newest standards issued by the EPA in December were the National Standards for Mercury Pollution from Power Plants, which the EPA states have come from a 20-year-old requirement to cut smokestack emissions. Emissions from power plants have been linked to premature deaths, heart attacks, childhood asthma and acute bronchitis, the EPA stated.

    * According to the EPA, power plants are the largest source of toxic air pollutants such as mercury, arsenic and cyanide and are responsible for half the acid gas emissions in the country. The standards will require about 40 percent of all coal fired plants in the nation to take steps to decrease pollutants.

     
    • Udahman62  •  Green Bay, Wisconsin  •  3 mths ago
      For the 8% of coal fired power plants closed in the nation...don't forget the jet-streams that bring coal fired residue from Asia where China is opening a new coal fired plant EVERY 11 DAYS! They gain;we lose...yet again
      • Calvin 3 mths ago
        And it gets even worse than that, as Chinese coal plants almost certainly have no environmental safeguards.
      • Da Vern 3 mths ago
        Kinda like making one kid in a pool full of kids stop peeing while the rest still do.
    • Shared  •  Santa Cruz, California  •  3 mths ago
      Lies and the Lying Liars who tell them!
    • Udahman62  •  Green Bay, Wisconsin  •  3 mths ago
      Here it comes TEXAS...77% of the energy produced in TEXAS comes from coal-fired power plants.
    • I Am Jacks Username  •  Salt Lake City, Utah  •  3 mths ago
      Sorry but this logic is just absurd. What's the point of having a job if you're dying from cancer from industry emissions, can't drink the water due to industry pollution and your kids are being born as mutants from all of the above? The Texas so-called 'think-tank' can't think past dollars that mean absolutely nothing when you're dead or dying. I don't buy into the grumpy old Republican diatribe that regulation is bad. The only thing it's bad for is a handful of wealthy people's pocketbooks. For the rest of us, more regulation on the polluters is what is needed, not less.
    • compdocjoe  •  3 mths ago
      I see the dumbos posting on this site have no clue, because the EPA was created by conservative Republicans back when Nixon was president.
      • vincent 3 mths ago
        So?
      • JohnN 3 mths ago
        Nixon was a republican, not a Conservative.
    • David  •  Sugar Land, Texas  •  3 mths ago
      The Texas Public Policy Foundation is carrying the anti-regulatory water for Luminant Energy which is a wholesale power company with assets that include a number of very old, should have been retired coal-fired power plants that Energy Future Holdings Corp. picked up for a song in Texas. While power companies all over the country were putting the equipment in place to comply with long anticipated clean air rules Luminant went to work financing a disinformation campaign about the regulations. The enlisted the two Republican Senators and the Texas Republican Congressional delegation to spread the word. Luminant's problem is that their profit model falls apart if they have to upgrade the old power plants to comply. It's about Luminant's profits at the expense of the health of the citizens downwind of their plants. It's also about Luminant working a competitive advantage over other power companies since they did not and never intended to spend the money required to upgrade the power plants.
      • vincent 3 mths ago
        What a beautiful anthology, except it falls apart, when they close the plants, meaning the excessive profit you rant about is not there.
      • David 3 mths ago
        Vincent: Apparently you are too ideologically blind to understand that EFH Corp picked up the old power plants on the cheap because they were at end of life and not worth upgrading to meet the new standards. Other power companies across the country retired similar plants because it did not make economic sense to upgrade them. EFH Corp's business model relies on using political influence to distort the regulatory environment so that they will have a competitive advantage over the power companies that are already in compliance or well on their way to compliance with the long anticipated regulations.
    • People First  •  3 mths ago
      Those who profit monitarily from generating power using dirty coal are leaving the rest of us to pay with our health. Saving money is one thing. Saving lives is another and more important.
      • vincent 3 mths ago
        Remember that when you start pumping $5 plus gasoline, and cant run your air conditioning when its 105 degrees.
      • bdj_777 3 mths ago
        Those special interest polluters *own* the GOP.

        Vincent you are ridiculous. Sensible regulations are what keep America strong and healthy. You would rather see another Love Canal or a Chernobyl here in the USA so that the Koch brothers can squeeze another billion from hard-working middle-class Americans. It's funny how your kind are always saying we don't need regulations, but also the first to excuse corporation fram taking responsibility when there is inevitably a spill or disaster.

        Look at Exxon in Alaska which *still* has not cleaned up after the Valdez spill. Tar balls are still washing up on the beaches of Florida and Louisiana, but BP is trying to stop the payments that they promised to the local folks there.

        We don't need your kind defending the polluters and putting real Americans at risk.
    • Udahman62  •  Green Bay, Wisconsin  •  3 mths ago
      If the EPA wanted to regulate carbon monoxide I suppose their next target is COWS that produce hundreds more pollutant that all the cars combined when chewing their cud
    • compdocjoe  •  3 mths ago
      How's that Cap and Trade working for you? More like snatch and grab!
    • Reagen  •  Lake Charles, Louisiana  •  3 mths ago
      I have a coal fired electricity plant within 5 miles of my house. The air is clean, the rivers are clean, and my light bill is pretty low. I live in Louisiana, and I know Libs think I'm a stupid redneck, but I have a college degree and am a professional.
      • Weto 3 mths ago
        Most Libs live in Public Housing and live off your labors !
      • A Yahoo! User 3 mths ago
        Well as one that works in the air regulation field, the smokestacks on that coal fired electrical plant are pretty high aren't they? There is a reason for that. It is so the polluted air does not settle in the area that the plant is located. The air is pushed up into the airstream to carry to away. It is still polluting, I can assure you.
      • JohnN 3 mths ago
        liberals only hate people that disagree with them.
    • you're all idiots  •  Cambridge, Massachusetts  •  3 mths ago
      actually, there is not enough information here to know the real answer - of course we don't want our health damaged by pollutants, nor do we want unnecessarily high costs of production due to excessive regulations that require a standard that far exceeds what is necessary. Give me that data, or you're all blowing partisan hot air...
    • Greg  •  3 mths ago
      Where does the cancer come from????
    • Scott  •  3 mths ago
      Get ready for your electric bill to go through the roof and 5 to 6 dollar a gallon gasoline and higher unemployment! Thank you very much Barack Hussein Obama. You care so much for the middle class, don't you? Anyone who votes for this loser again is a complete idiot.
    • Weto  •  Albuquerque, New Mexico  •  3 mths ago
      Obama gave Finlands FISKER Hybrid car manufacturer a bit over $500 MILLION to develop a $100,000 Sports Car for his TARP Buddies. Hows that for saving the world ?
    • Ron  •  New York, New York  •  3 mths ago
      Liberals love to say that GOP love toxic spills etc.. How childish...especially to spread blatant lies..
    • Tom  •  3 mths ago
      Typical. Polluter hires a front group to attack EPA and bribes...er, "contributes to"...a few very willing politicians. Then they publicize some blather about how cutting pollutants as many other plants have already done will cripple the industry or some similar nonsense.
    • JOE  •  3 mths ago
      whats cancer for a small American town if EXON can't continue their record profits?
    • buggrthat  •  3 mths ago
      I thought there might be something to this story until I saw where it was coming from.
    • Lt. Frank Drebin  •  3 mths ago
      Lets not forget the EPA wants to fine farmers for the dust their farm machinery kicks up while tending their crops, wonder if the costs will be passed on to us consumers?
    • Mauigrrl  •  Haiku, Hawaii  •  3 mths ago
      Texas. Enough said.
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