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Lawmakers, Coal Industry Slam EPA Regs at Capitol Hill Rally

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Photo Credit: Graeme Jennings/ExaminerThousands of coal miners swarmed the Capitol’s west lawn Tuesday to protest forthcoming Environmental Protection Agency regulations that they say will kill jobs in coal communities.

The estimated crowd of 3,000 at the industry-sponsored event railed against greenhouse gas emission rules floated by President Obama’s EPA. Attendees, as well as lawmakers who spoke at the event, contended the agency is putting their livelihoods in jeopardy.

“We’re going to push back against these people in every chance we can. We are going to stop this war on coal,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said at the event. “[Obama] has created a depression in eastern Kentucky.”

The EPA’s carbon rule for new power plants is due by June, and the one for existing plants is scheduled for June 2015.

Republicans, centrist Democrats and industry officials say those impending rules, which are the centerpiece of the Obama administration’s plan to address climate change, will drive energy prices higher, stunt the economy and create ghost towns out of coal communities.

Read more from this story HERE.

Democratic Congressman Eviscerates New EPA Coal Regulation

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Photo Credit: Getty Images

Photo Credit: Getty Images

Rep. Nick Rahall, D-W.Va., said last Thursday that the Environmental Protection Agency’s latest proposal to reduce carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants is “ill-conceived and illogical.”

Rahall, who wrote a blistering op-ed for Coal Valley News, reiterated the point that the EPA’s new regulations would essentially ban new coal plants and further the “war on coal” meme.

“It is just the latest salvo in the EPA’s war on coal, a war I have unwaveringly soldiered against, and I will work tirelessly to prevent such an ill-conceived and illogical plan from moving forward,” Rahall said.

Rahall noted that the EPA’s “wrong-headed policy” would increase energy bills, reduce energy reliability and cost jobs. He then blamed the EPA for

“This callous, ideologically driven EPA continues to be numb to the economic pain that its reckless regulations cause,” Rahall said.

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama Takes on Coal with First-Ever Carbon Limits

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

The Obama administration will press ahead Friday with tough requirements for new coal-fired power plants, moving to impose for the first time strict limits on the pollution blamed for global warming.

The proposal would help reshape where Americans get electricity, away from a coal-dependent past into a future fired by cleaner sources of energy. It’s also a key step in President Barack Obama’s global warming plans, because it would help end what he called “the limitless dumping of carbon pollution” from power plants.

Although the proposed rule won’t immediatedly affect plants already operating, it eventually would force the government to limit emissions from the existing power plant fleet, which accounts for a third of all U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. Obama has given the Environmental Protection Agency until next summer to propose those regulations.

The EPA provided The Associated Press with details of the proposal prior to the official announcement, which was expected Friday morning. The public will have a chance to comment on the rule before it becomes final.

Despite some tweaks, the rule packs the same punch as one announced last year, which was widely criticized by industry and Republicans as effectively banning any new coal projects in the U.S.

Read more from this story HERE.

Robert Murray, a Top American CEO, Says Many Prominent Americans are Discussing the Need to Impeach President Obama

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waging warThe direct speaking Robert Murray pulled no punches when he addressed the Bluefield Coal show in West Virginia today.

The CEO of Murray Energy, one of America’s largest coal producers, had a lot to say and the word impeachment was one of them during a hard hitting keynote speech to the coal mining industry, as well as to the rest of America.

Murray warned that Obama’s disastrous energy policies are leading America to a European model of energy poverty as evidenced by huge price spikes to consumers in Britain and Germany…

“They are destroying low cost electricity in America for everyone, including our citizens on fixed incomes and our manufacturers of products that compete in the global marketplace. European countries, particularly Germany went this route with disastrous consequences”

See: Germany says Solar is path to bankruptcy.

He backed up Germany’s energy plight with: “Germany spent 194 billion in the past 10 years on their “green” Obama experiment, including 10.2 billion in subsidies for solar alone. The result is German electric prices have jumped 61% and 15% of German families live in energy poverty.”……All of their predictions on the cost of solar and wind power were understated five-fold”

“To make up for German’s energy shortfall created by the loss of nuclear power and the inefficiency of “green” electricity, Germany is currently building 23 new coal-fired electricity generating plants.”

Great Britain is another canary in the “green” mineshaft as their citizens’ struggle with huge price increases in electricity: “Their electricity prices have risen more than than 70% since 2005. Further, electricity prices are expected to increase another 54% by 2020.”……..and other European countries are now faced with power black outs. Mr. Obama, his supporters and most democrats in Congress will not recognize this.”

See: Britain quietly tries to install its unpopular windmills in Ireland

Murray pointed the spotlight on the actual damage these Obama “green” policies will wreak on America: “Mr. Obama’s EPA alone will destroy much of America’s economy, resulting in the loss of 2.15 million jobs and nearly 200 billion in electricity rate increases by 2020, according to recent expert studies.”

If there is a keystone to modern society, it is the availability of relatively cheap and abundant energy and Murray spelled it out: “Low cost electricity is a staple of life. President Obama and his radical appointees are generating a huge crisis for America in what they are doing to the cost and reliability of electric power for our citizens.”

Murray put a personal tie into why he is so passionate about Obama’s disastrous energy policies:

Mr. Obama’s actions are a human issue to me, as I know the names of many Americans whose jobs and family livelihoods are being destroyed as he appeases his radical environmentalist, unionist, liberal elitist Hollywood character and other constituents. These folks are my employees.”

“These good Americans only want to work in honor and dignity. But when their jobs and those of their neighbors are eliminated in the coal mining areas of America, they have no one to sell their homes to, which is generally their only possession. Thus these people, who only want to work, are prohibited from doing so and fall to the negative side of the economic ledger for the rest of their lives. This is not the America that I have always cherished.”

See: Elite environmentalists tell coal miners to build amusement parks to take the place of their mining jobs.

Robert Murray ominously closed out his speech with a warning to the President and those who insist on taking America down a path that will eventually lead to disaster for the country:

“Many prominent Americans are now discussing the need to impeach President Obama…maybe you will want to be a part of this effort.”

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Ed Farnan is the conservative columnist at IrishCentral, where he has been writing on the need for energy independence, strong self defense, secure borders, 2nd amendment, smaller government and many other issues. His articles appear in many publications throughout the USA and world. He has been a guest on Fox News and a regular guest on radio stations in the US and Europe.

Union: EPA Carbon Regulations Costing Jobs

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

A Pennsylvania local union officer argued last week that hundreds of families will lose their jobs due to the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) anti-coal agenda, according to the Pittsburg Post-Gazzette.

Raymond C. Ventrone, business manager of the Boilermakers Local 154 union, explained that the coal industry has already invested millions of dollars in clean air technology. Even though coal usage tripled in the last 30 years, sulfur dioxide levels fell by 56 percent thanks to this new technology.

However, according to Ventrone, the EPA disregarded these innovations by the coal industry.

Read more from this story HERE.

Coal is No Longer our Parents Energy…it is 21st Century Power

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Photo Credit: Irish Central The backbone of our modern civilization is based on relatively cheap and abundant energy. Coal has been the inexpensive and reliable engine of our economy for generations and up until the 70’s, billowing smokestacks were the sign of economic prosperity for the United States and other developed countries.

But we learned that cheap energy from burning coal and other fossil fuels came with a price tag to our environment and the dirty skies over our cities, proved to be hazardous to our health. The very fuel that powered our modern society was poisoning our environment.

In response, governments and the energy industry set about to enact new standards for energy production. Soon the air in big cities started to clear up and you could even swim again in rivers that were once deemed too polluted to set foot in.

Smokestacks that once billowed thick black smoke, become steam stacks. A study in the New England Journal of Medicine revealed that air quality in major American cities is better now than at any time in the last two decades.

Human ingenuity is amazing and when pushed, great advances can be achieved. Coal which has been the poster child of demonization by environmentalists on the left has made tremendous advances in clean burning technology. After 40 years of advances, clean coal power is on the cusp of making new strides in providing the planet with relatively clean and massive amounts of energy.

See: Fueling the Future with 21st Century Coal by Gregory H. Boyce

Now is not the time to demonize coal but to nurture and support the new coal technology that can help power humanity out of poverty throughout the world.

Energy is looked upon as a human right; studies show that each tenfold increase in electricity is linked to a 10-year increase in life. The United Nations linked life expectancy, educational attainment, and income with per capita energy use….So why deny the rest of the world the same life expectancy the US and other developed nations enjoy?

The developing world wants to step into the modernity of the 21st century too; they want lights, refrigeration, air conditioning television and modern medicine as well. …..Clean coal power can be their answer.

Coal power lead the greatest mass migration from human poverty into prosperity as China became a manufacturing behemoth. China is building more ultra modern supercritical and ultra-supercritical coal plants than any other nation in the world. China has also said they will decommission their older power plants and adapt modern emissions control to the existing fleet of coal power plants.

Instead of punishing their main source of cheap reliable energy, China is embracing coal to adapt and modernize….to make it a 21st century fuel that will bring clean economic prosperity to their 1.3 billion people.

Next-generation clean coal plants are capable of producing energy at near-zero emissions. With new technology at work to help coal become even cleaner and more efficient…..

Unless “renewable” forms of energy such as wind and solar, achieve significant breakthroughs in technology, they will never be able to compete with clean coal power on a level playing field.

Already countries such as Spain and Germany, which heavily invested in renewables, have started to have second thoughts as the bills come due for years of subsidizing these forms of energy. Germany’s finance minister even declared solar was the path to bankruptcy. See story. Spain under a new government is backing out of commitments it made to renewables and is actually going to make them pay taxes. See story.

From the excellent piece “The Fundamental Limitations of Renewable Energy” posted in the Energy Collective: “It appears unlikely that we will see a large scale market driven displacement of fossil fuels by renewable energy in the first half of this century.”

Coal is no longer our parents energy…it is 21st century power.

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Ed Farnan is the conservative columnist at IrishCentral, where he has been writing on the need for energy independence, strong self defense, secure borders, 2nd amendment, smaller government and many other issues. His articles appear in many publications throughout the USA and world. He has been a guest on Fox News and a regular guest on radio stations in the US and Europe.

Republicans Use ‘War on Coal’ Charge Against Dems Ahead of Elections (+video)

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Photo Credit: Fox News

Photo Credit: Fox News

Foes of President Obama’s alleged “war on coal” climate plan are hoping to use the combustible issue to tarnish Democrats in the next round of elections.

The political backlash started almost immediately after the president announced last week he’s ordering the EPA to draft new rules to limit emissions at coal-fired power plants.

In Virginia, it didn’t take long for Republican gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli to label the plan the “Obama-Biden-McAuliffe war on coal,” in his race for governor against former Democratic Party chairman Terry McAuliffe.

The Cuccinelli campaign launched a coal-themed online ad blitz last week, as both candidates charge into the November 2013 election.

Other politicos already are looking down the calendar to 2014 and beyond.

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama Declares War on Global Warming, Making Good on Campaign Promise to Bankrupt Coal (+video)

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Photo Credit: Fox News

Photo Credit: Fox News

President Obama said Saturday that scientists must design new fuels and energy sources to curb carbon pollution, part of a larger plan that he will announce next week that is expected to include efforts to regulate emissions from coal-fired power plants.

The president says in an online video that his plan includes preparing the United States for the effects of such pollution, which has been connected to climate change, and leading other nations in such efforts.

The new details and the Environmental Protection Agency-led plan for coal-firing plants, under the Clean Air Act, comes as no surprise, considering what Obama said in 2008 while running for this first term.

“If someone wants to build a new coal-fired power plant they can, but it will bankrupt them because they will be charged a huge sum for all the greenhouse gas that’s being emitted,” he said.

Read more from this story HERE.

Coal Industry Regulations Were A Laughing Matter to the EPA

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Photo Credit: AP Lisa Jackson recently left her job as EPA administrator amid an investigation into her use of alias email accounts. She apparently used those secret accounts to shield official agency business from Freedom of Information Act requests.

In one of those emails, recently obtained by a free-market think tank, an EPA employee mocked proposed coal ash regulations, joking that Jackson “knows which landfill’s leaching, She knows which pond might break, She knows they all lack liners, Close ’em down, for goodness sake!”

The Competitive Enterprise Institute says it has now received thousands of heavily redacted emails sent by or to Jackson and her email alias, Richard Windsor.

(CEI sued the EPA to force compliance with its FOIA requests related to the EPA’s coal policies. The second batch of emails was released three hours after most federal offices had closed on Feb. 15 for the holiday weekend.)

According to CEI, “nearly 95 percent of the correspondence from the administrator and more than 80 percent of the email sent to ‘Richard Windsor’ – excluding news stories available to the public – were redacted (blacked out), despite claims by President Obama his was the most transparent administration ever.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Fact Checking Romney’s Claim that Production of Oil on Public Lands is Down (+video)

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One of the most intense exchanges of the night arose over the question of permitting and oil production on public lands.

In the segment below, Romney claimed that hydrocarbon production on government land is down. He stated that oil production is down 14% and gas production is down 9%.

Although Obama vigorously denied this, the Washington Post states that “Romney’s telling the truth when he says, ‘Production of oil on public land is down 14 percent and production of gas on public land is down 9 percent.’ That’s because energy production on federal lands is down compared to 2010, according to the Energy Information Administration.” However, the Post adds that production is “still higher than where production stood under President George W. Bush.”

The National Journal has a different take because it evaluated three years of production (2008 to 2011) rather than comparing just the last two years. By reviewing production over the longer range, it found both candidates were right and wrong: “Oil production on public lands is up 12 percent from 2008 to 2011, according to a March report by the Energy Information Administration…Natural-gas production on public lands is down 16.5 percent between 2008 and 2011, according to the same EIA report…Coal production on public lands is down 7.8 percent from 2008 to 2011.”