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Mail
Magazine 24...
The
Human
Consequences of EPA’s War on Coal
by Lachlan
Markay
May 8, 2012
There are
very real consequences to the Environmental Protection Agency’s
continued
efforts to undermine America’s coal industry. Those consequences were
recently
spotlighted in an industry-produced video (watch the video below)
Maria
Tworek owns a sports bar in Omaha, Nebraska. “Our energy bills are
sky-high,”
Tworek explains. The bar has to keep its cooling facilities running
24/7 to
keep all of its beer cold. If “we can’t cool our product, we don’t make
money,”
Tworek says. “It’s as simple as that.”
The bar is
Tworek’s livelihood. “This is how we live,” she says. “This is how we
support
our family.”
Nebraska is
a coal-intensive state. According to the video, 71% of the state’s
power comes
from coal. And while the state has the 11th lowest electricity costs in
the
nation, Tworek says “prices seem to continually go up.”
If the EPA
has its way, those price hikes will only intensify. For the first time
ever,
the agency has classified carbon dioxide, the chemical compound that
sustains
vegetative life, as a “pollutant.” Using the resulting authority over
carbon
emission regulations, the EPA now plans restrictions on coal power
plants that
are so stringent, they will likely herald the demise of coal’s role in
electricity production.
“New coal
plants would effectively be banned because their emission rate is
almost double
that of the proposed standard,” explains Bloomberg’s Rob Barnett in a
new
report (subscription required).
Because
coal is such a cheap source of electricity – by far the cheapest,
according to
the Energy Information Administration – increases in the price of coal
brought
on by declining production would likely lead to significantly higher
prices for
electricity consumers. States such as Nebraska, which are particularly
reliant
on coal, would be hit hardest.
But other
EPA regulations are hiking prices for other sources of electricity.
According
to a study by consulting company NERA conducted last year, EPA policies
may add
$52 billion to Americans’ electricity bills by 2022.
That means
higher energy bills for Maria Tworek and everyone else who buys
electricity.
There are real, human consequences of electricity price hikes,
something that
policymakers would do well to keep in mind.
Source:
blog.heritage.org
Read this
and other articles - plus watch the video - at Mail Magazine 24
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