This is the Chicago Tribune headline: “Closings of Chicago sites cut carbon dioxide emissions.”
Owned by Midwest Generation, the company confirmed their closing last week. At their peak, the two plants supplied power to roughly 1 million homes. In the past 2 1/2 years, 120 of the coutry’s 520 coal-fired plants have been closed.
Buried in the story was a little note about the 200 people who would lose their jobs. That’s 200 for two plants and if you extend that to the remaining 120 closings, that’s another 25,000 unemployed workers. Unemployed by EPA regulations.
The article fails to mention where the replacement power will come from and at what price. Many of these plants might have made investments to meet requirements, but the EPA timetable made that unworkable.
To his credit, Obama told us this was his plan shortly after taking office. It’s done by fiat, not by congressional vote. It’s done without regard to the impact of future utility bills or meeting future demand.Obama said: “Under my plan of a cap-and-trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket. Even regardless of what I say about whether coal is good or bad.” He went on to explain: “So, if somebody wants to build a coal plant, they can — it’s just that it will bankrupt them.”
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/03/29/electric-rates-will-soar-now-that-obamas-epa-has-crushed-coal-fired-power/#ixzz267fKsqsl
Giving middle class Americans a fair shake doesn’t include looking after your power bills or the futures of workers who worked at these plants for 20 years or more.
The environmental lobby got the fair shake, the middle class got the shaft.
