EPA’s Climate Regulations Will Harm American Manufacturing

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The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) forthcoming climate change regulations for new and existing electricity generating units have been appropriately labeled the “war on coal,”[1] because the proposed limits for carbon dioxide emissions would essentially prohibit the construction of new coal-fired power plants and force existing ones into early retirement.

However, the casualties will extend well beyond the coal industry, hurting families and businesses and taking a significant toll on American manufacturing across the nation. Congress should stop the EPA and all other federal agencies from regulating carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions.

Driving Energy Prices Up, Economic Activity Down

Coal provides approximately 40 percent of America’s electricity generation.[2] By significantly limiting the use of an affordable energy source, the EPA’s regulations will increase electricity prices for American households. Since low-income families spend a larger proportion of their income on energy, a tax that increases energy prices would disproportionately affect the budgets of the poorest American families.

Higher energy prices as a result of the regulations will squeeze both production and consumption. Since energy is a critical input for most goods and services, Americans will be hit repeatedly with higher prices as businesses pass higher costs onto consumers. However, if a company had to absorb the costs, high energy costs would shrink profit margins and prevent businesses from investing and expanding. The cutbacks result in less output, fewer new jobs, and less income.

Heritage Foundation analysts modeled the economic effects of a phase-out of coal between the years 2015 and 2038. Using the Heritage Foundation Energy Model, a derivative of the federal government’s National Energy Model System, we found that by the end of 2023, nearly 600,000 jobs will be lost, a family of four’s income will drop by $1,200 per year, and aggregate gross domestic product decreases by $2.23 trillion over the entire period of the analysis.[3 ]

Manufacturing Hit Hard

America’s manufacturing base will be particularly harmed by the EPA’s climate regulations. Manufacturing accounts for over 330,000 of the jobs lost.[4] This occurs for a number of reasons.

As more coal generation is taken offline, the marketplace must find a way to make up for that lost supply. The Heritage Energy Model builds in the most cost-effective means of replacing the lost coal through a combination of consumers decreasing energy use as an adjustment to higher prices and increased power generation from other sources.

Manufacturing is an energy-intensive industry, and the impact of the higher energy prices on manufacturing averages to more than 770 jobs losses per congressional district. However, not all regions are affected the same, as districts in Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, and Illinois are especially hit hard. In fact, 19 out of the top 20 worse off congressional districts from the Administration’s war on coal are located in the Midwest region. In those districts, the manufacturing industry, on average, will slash more than 1,600 jobs by 2023. The table at the end of the paper shows the estimates of the decrease of manufacturing employment per congressional district by 2023.

Furthermore, manufacturing growth will be harmed as a result of the fuel switching that will occur to make up for lost coal generation. Natural gas will be diverted away from manufacturing and to power generation. As a result, the Heritage Energy model projects that natural gas prices will increase 28 percent by 2030.

Natural gas and liquids produced with natural gas provide a feedstock for fertilizers, chemicals and pharmaceuticals, waste treatment, food processing, fuel for industrial boilers, transportation fuel, and much more. The chemical-manufacturing base alone is building 148 new operations topping over $100 billion in response to current and projected low natural gas prices from the shale gas boom.[5] As the U.S. is experiencing a renaissance in manufacturing and energy-intensive industries, the Administration’s war on coal could adversely affect America’s competitive advantage.

Availability of Carbon Capture and Sequestration

The primary reason the EPA’s regulations will ban the construction of coal-fired electricity generating units is that to meet the thresholds, new plants will have to install carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) technology. As identified by the Obama Administration’s Interagency Task Force on Carbon Capture and Storage 2010 report, implementation of CCS has a number of extremely difficult obstacles to overcome. There are questions of technical scalability, regulatory challenges, long-term liability of storing the captured carbon dioxide, and above all, cost.[6 ]

No credible basis exists to state that CCS is adequately demonstrated today, since no large-scale power plant in the U.S. has CCS. One large-scale CCS project is currently under contract—the Kemper County Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) plant—but it is hardly a model for new coal-fired plants for the rest of the country. Setting aside the fact that the project has had nearly half a billion dollars in cost overruns and received over $400 million in Department of Energy grants and preferential tax credits,[7] the plant is using a lower-grade lignite coal rather than higher-grade bituminous and subbituminous coal found in many parts of the rest of the country.

The Kemper plant will use IGCC technology that turns coal into gas as opposed to pulverized combustion and the captured carbon dioxide will serve a purpose for enhanced oil recovery to help finance the plant. New coal-fired plants in other parts of the country will not have those opportunities, so the Kemper plant is not an indicator of adequate demonstration. Further, the fact that the plant is not actually operating disqualifies it as the model. CCS should be pursued only if companies believe it is in their economic interest to do so—for instance, if profitable opportunities for enhanced oil recovery exist nearby.

Congress Stepping In

Senator Joe Manchin (D–WV) and Representative Ed Whitfield (R–KY) have introduced the Electricity Security and Affordability Act (H.R. 3826) that would require that greenhouse gas regulations for electricity generating units meet certain standards that prove they are economically feasible to achieve and have a demonstrated positive environmental benefit. Any imposed standards to limit or contain emissions cannot have been tested in isolation and with special treatment like the Kemper plant but must have been used commercially for a year by multiple plants (at least six) in multiple regions in order to be representative of the industry.

To truly ensure that the technology is cost-effective, Congress should strip away all subsidies and Department of Energy spending for CCS in order to prevent the federal government from presenting a handful of fundamentally uneconomic CCS plants as proof that the standards are legitimate. However, the most effective policy solution would be to prohibit the EPA and all agencies from regulating greenhouse gas emissions.

—Nicolas D. Loris is Herbert and Joyce Morgan Fellow in the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies and Filip Jolevski is a Research Assistant in the Center for Data Analysis at The Heritage Foundation

This article appeared originally at Heritage.com and is re-published in full with the Heritage Foundation’s permission.

Court Rules NSA Can’t Keep Metadata Longer Than 5 Years

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Photo Credit: REUTERS/Jonathan ErnstA Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court judge denied a request Friday by the National Security Agency to keep Internet and phone metadata gathered through bulk surveillance programs longer than five years.

Judge Reggie Walton of the secret FISA Court that approves classified surveillance warrants said the government failed to make a compelling case for preserving the data beyond the current five-year maximum, especially in light of escalating privacy concerns sparked by programs leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

Many of those program’s protocols were either misrepresented to the court, or not presented at all.

“The amended procedures would further infringe on the privacy interests of United States persons whose telephone records were acquired in vast numbers and retained by the government to aid in national security investigations,” Walton wrote in the order posted by Politico.

Read more this story HERE.

Common Core ‘Architect’ Deals Blow to Opponents with SAT Revamp

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Photo Credit: AP PHOTO/ TAMUG.EDUThe man known as the “architect” of Common Core has used his new job running the College Board to deal a devastating blow to critics of the national education standards.

The SAT was revamped to align with the Common Core Standards Initiative, the broad language and math standards adopted by 45 states despite growing complaints that it will result in nationalized control of K-12 curriculum. The announcement on Tuesday was made by College Board President David Coleman, who before taking the post in 2012, played a key role in designing Common Core.

Common Core supporters insist the program will ensure through testing a baseline level of learning throughout the nation, but critics say those tests will ensure a uniform curriculum springs up to prepare kids for the tests. Now, with the leading college entrance exam aligned with Common Core, critics acknowledge fighting Common Core could hurt students’ chances of getting into universities and even property values.

“It’s a roundabout way to put pressure on states that opted out of Common Core,” said Whitney Neal, director of Grassroots at Freedom Works. “If you are legislator from Virginia let’s say, this will put pressure on you obtain material to make your district more appealing especially to homebuyers. SAT averages are often included in realtor information and high school success rate is always a selling point.”

Read more this story HERE.

Perry: ‘Time for a Little Rebellion’

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Texas governor Rick Perry broke through as a serious presidential hopeful Friday with a spirited speech to a cheering crowd at the Conservative Political Action Conference.

Perry brought the audience to its feet with a call to bring the successful conservative policies of red state governors to the national level.

Perry took jabs at targets including New York, California, and the Department of Education, noting that common-sense governance has been absent not only from blue states but from Washington, D.C.

“It’s time for a little rebellion on the battlefield of ideas,” the Texas governor said, paraphrasing Thomas Jefferson.

Read more this story HERE.

Wells Fargo Gold Train Rides Again!

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Saturday, March 1st, Rod Perry cleared away some mists of time to help thirty thousand Iditarod Race spectators and an international TV audience look back into the glory days of the historic Iditarod Trail. Along with 1984 Iditarod Champ Dean Osmar and his team, Rod performed an Old North reenactment. Leading the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race Ceremonial Start out of Anchorage, Rod rode a ouija (weegee) board and steered with a gee pole in front of the great oaken freight sled he, his brother Alan, and Cliff Sisson had just built. The performance demonstrated a freighting method unknown to moderns, but commonly seen during the North’s gold rush era.

Complete with period costuming the men portrayed the legendary Wells Fargo Gold Train. For eight years during Iditarod’s peak production a century ago, Wells Fargo annually mushed the incredible riches of the yearly cleanup over the Iditarod Trail to Seward for ocean shipment south. Those transports were not just bringing out a few nuggets and a little dust in a couple of moose-hide pokes; no, the Wells Fargo Express teams were entrusted to tow out gold by the literal ton worth millions. One year the company’s haul was 3,400 pounds drawn by several teams comprised of forty-six huge, old-breed freighting huskies. And this was anything but a short, daisy-strewn stroll in the park! Especially in the earliest years of the Gold Train, before there was a cut-and-marked trail and resupply points, it was characterized as, “make it all the way through on your own or die in the attempt.” Sleds loaded with thousands of pounds of supplies—mostly bales of dried salmon, rice, bacon and lard for the dogs, plus trail and camp gear, the daring men and their incredible huskies pushed hundreds of miles through blinding blizzards, excruciating sub-zero cold, deep, untracked snows, treacherous thin ice and overflows, and, in the dead of an arctic winter, the crossing of the greatest mountain range on the continent. Over a stretch of the trail that takes today’s Iditarod racers but four days to cover, it once took former Black Hills stagecoach driver Bob Griffis and his intrepid crew over five weeks, sometimes fighting to make as few as six miles a day.

Back in 2011 Rod also led the Ceremonial Start, that time commemorating the centennial of the building of the Iditarod Trail in 1910-1911. He then began thinking of how it could be done more effectively. Our modern races such as the Iditarod and Yukon Quest do bring attention to the old trails. However, they do not come close to conveying what historic trail use looked like. Modern mushers dressed like catalogue fashion plates driving small plastic sleds lightly loaded and traveling at three times the speed of the great freighting dogs of yore would have made a gold-rush-era trailsman blink his eyes in amazement and shake his head in lack of recognition. Being a history buff and hopeless Old North romantic, Rod decided to develop what he hopes will become an annual “Show Before the Show” which would take place in the hour leading up to the Ceremonial Start. As planned, the educational and entertaining spectacle would include historically authentic representations of a half dozen old-time trail users—trapper, freighter, mail carrier, the Wells Fargo Gold Train, an Athabascan family on their way to the Potlatch, and the inimitable Eskimo driver, Split the Wind. So as spectacularly successful as Rod’s portrayal this year was, he hopes it is but the beginning.

Rod Perry, author of the definitive works on Iditarod history, TRAILBREAKERS Pioneering Alaska’s Iditarod, is one of the founding drivers of the first Iditarod Race in 1973. He was appointed in 1979 by the Secretary of the Interior to the Iditarod National Historic Trail Advisory Council. For more written and photo coverage of construction of his historic sled, his run riding the ouija board and steering with the gee pole, and some of his recent newspaper, TV and radio interviews about the sled and run, go to www.rodperry.com and visit Rod’s Blog. More posts will be put up daily throughout the Iditarod Race. The sled is temporarily on display at the Wells Fargo Heritage Museum, C Street and Northern Lights in Anchorage.

States Give Criminal Exemptions to Union Goons

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Photo Credit: National Review By Alec Torres.

Labor organizers and union enforcers are exempt from important criminal laws in some of the country’s largest states. California, Illinois, and Wisconsin are among the states that allow union members to stalk, harass, and threaten victims — so long as they are putatively doing “legitimate” union business.

As National Review Online recently reported, one such state, Pennsylvania, is pushing to repeal exemptions that give union members freedom from prosecution for stalking, harassing, or even threatening to use a weapon of mass destruction.

Other states have similar laws on the books, but unlike the Keystone State, they’re not even trying to fix this double standard.

California, for example, has a union carveout for stalking and trespassing. Those engaged in “collective bargaining, labor relations, or labor disputes” are also legally free to “willfully [block] the free movement of another person in a [public-transit] system facility or vehicle.” If an ordinary Californian did that, he or she would face a $400 fine and 90 days in prison.

The Golden State even exempts those “engaged in labor union activities” from prosecution for making “a credible threat to cause bodily injury.”

Read more this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: Fox NewsLittle-Known PA Law Shields Unions From Stalking, Harassment Charges

By Fox News Insider.

We heard an unbelievable story on Fox and Friends this morning about a Pennsylvania businesswoman who says she has been repeatedly harassed by union workers. And because of a little-known state law from the 1930s, nothing can be done about the menacing tactics.

The dispute between Sarina Rose and local Philadelphia union members started when her employer, Post Bros., hired some non-union workers to build apartments. The company refused to hire an all-union labor force for the job, and the resulting dispute led to daily protests at the site by union workers.

Rose says non-union workers were routinely harassed on their way to and from work and their vehicles were damaged as the behavior became more and more violent.

“In a couple of incidents, guys were chased with crowbars. Some were actually hit,” she explained to Steve Doocy this morning. But prosecutors are handcuffed by a clause in state law that protects parties in labor disputes from charges of stalking, harassment, and terroristic threats.

Rose said that many lawmakers she has spoken to about the exemption are “perplexed” about it.

Read more this story HERE.

Poll: 67 Percent Would Vote Out All Current Lawmakers

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Photo Credit: APMost voters would oust all current members of Congress — including their own senators and representative — if given the opportunity, the latest Fox News poll finds.

By a 67-26 percent margin, voters would kick everybody on Capitol Hill to the curb and replace them with new people. That includes two-thirds of Democrats, Republicans and independents.

The result is perhaps not so surprising, given how voters feel about lawmakers these days: just 12 percent approve of the job Congress is doing, while 78 percent disapprove.

Congress received a record-low 9 percent approval rating in October 2013.

Democratic candidates hold a slim two-percentage point advantage when voters are asked about their preference for Congress this year.

Read more this story HERE.

February: 223,000 More Unemployed Individuals

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Photo Credit: APThe number of unemployed individuals 16 years and over increased by 223,000 in February, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

In February, there were 10,459,000 unemployed individuals age 16 and over, which was up 223,000 from January…

In addition, according to the BLS, there were 91,361,000 Americans, 16 or older, who did not participate in the nation’s labor force in February, meaning they neither held a job nor actively sought one.

That brought the national labor force participation rate to 63%, which matched January’s participation rate.

Read more this story HERE.

‘Suffocating Pressure’: Former ThinkProgress Writer Describes White House ‘Censorship’

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Photo Credit: REUTERS/Jason Reed Zaid Jilani, a former blogger with the left-wing think tank Center for American Progress, explained this week how the Obama administration frequently tries to censor the progressive organization’s content when it departs from the White House’s agenda.

Jiliani was reacting to two on-air protests by journalists opposed to Russia’s invasion of southern Ukraine. The two worked for Russia Today (RT) — an English-speaking media outlet funded directly by Moscow — and felt their bosses were trying to censor their opinions.

In a post titled, ”How Working in Washington Taught Me We’re All A Little Like RT America,” Jilani explained how the White House frequently played the part of the Kremlin — leaning on management to push their writers in a particular direction, and punishing them if they strayed from the party line.

“I’m writing this post to explain how working in Washington taught me we’re all a little bit like the good folks who work at RT America,” Jilani explained, “struggling against editorial censors, doing our best to follow our conscience despite sometimes suffocating pressures from our publishers and sponsors.”

The blogger never assumed he would agree with everything pushed by the Center for American Progress’s Action Fund when he joined the 501(c)(4) nonprofit to write about national security in 2009. But he soon discovered that one topic in particular was entirely shielded from criticism — the war in Afghanistan, which President Obama was then in the process of escalating.

Read more this story HERE.

Russia, China Expanding Their Militaries As U.S. Shrinks

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Photo Credit: APAs the United States prepares to draw down its military to, if President Barack Obama gets his way, pre-World War II levels, countries around the world that do not exactly share our interests are building up their militaries.

First up on the build-up list – Russia. Even as Russia continues to occupy Crimea, and even as France is hosting talks to defuse that crisis, France began sea trials of the first of two Mistral-class amphibious assault/helicopter carrier ships the Russian Navy bought in 2011 for $1.6 billion, the Vladivostok. The Vladivostok is still on track for a fall 2014 delivery to the Pacific Fleet, with its sister ship, the Sevastopol (yes, it’s named after that Sevastopol in Crimea), due for delivery to the Black Sea Fleet in 2015.

The Mistral-class ships can accomodate 900 troops on a short-term basis along with a normal compliment of 16 helicopters. Ominously, when the Russians ordered the ships, GlobalSecurity.org noted Russian media quoted a Russian naval commander as saying the Mistral would have done in under one hour some of the tasks it took the existing Black Sea Fleet over a day to do during the Russian incursion into Georgia.

Read more this story HERE.