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Business Title: Sunday Reflection: Is EPA's true purpose protecting the environment or shutting down industry? Sunday Reflection: Is EPA's true purpose protecting the environment or shutting down industry? By:Bryan W. Shaw | OpEd Contributor | 07/23/11 8:05 PM. On July 7, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule -- another in an endless line of new federal environmental regulations with the stated purpose of improving air quality. Like the others, this new rule will have little impact on the environment. Rather, its chief effect will be to kill jobs, put the brakes on economic growth, increase energy costs and impair our energy security. And in keeping with an emerging pattern of EPA behavior, the new rule was adopted in flagrant violation of due-process rights. This rule will impose onerous new costs on coal-fired power plants, causing many to shut down, and threaten electrical generation reserve capacity all over the country. These reserve margins are needed to avoid power disruption during times of peak demand. Even temporary loss of reserve capacity risks dangerous blackouts. For example, American Electric Power announced that, "because of the unrealistic compliance timelines in the EPA proposals, we will have to prematurely shut down nearly 25 percent of our current coal-fired generating capacity, cut hundreds of good power plant jobs, and invest billions of dollars in capital to retire, retrofit and replace coal-fueled power plants." Given the rule's strict January 2012 compliance deadline, it will be physically impossible to replace the lost capacity with alternative sources such as natural gas, wind or solar. The new rule will not lead to cleaner energy, but rather only to significantly less energy. Even without the rule, one study projects a possible 50,000 megawatt gap between demand and capacity in Texas by 2030. Just as state regulators are doing everything possible to increase electrical capacity, so that we can maintain electrical reliability for our residents, the new rule will force us to reduce it. Higher energy costs affect prices throughout the economy and will be felt by all American families. But for fixed- and low-income populations, the prospect of hot summers, freezing winters and skyrocketing electric bills is frightening. For the elderly, this will mean increased incidence of heat stroke and heat stress at the hottest times of the year -- and perilous winters. In a proper rulemaking procedure, all of these risks could have come to light. Instead EPA summarily imposed the rule on Texas, violating due process by failing to provide proper notice and opportunity to be heard. A single sentence in a 256-page proposed rule can hardly be considered adequate notice that EPA intended to include Texas particulate emissions in the new rule. EPA did not provide Texas with the necessary data to examine its scientific basis for the rule or analyze the potential unintended consequences the rule will have upon Texas. To add insult to injury, the modeling in EPA's original proposal showed Texas power plant emissions did not significantly contribute to downwind "particulate matter" pollution (a primary component in surface ozone). It did not cross EPA's "contribution threshold" for inclusion and should have been excluded from the rule. However, in the final rule, EPA's revised modeling linked Texas emissions to air quality problems in Madison County, Ill. -- quite a distance. The EPA is taking comment on the inclusion of six additional states found to significantly contribute to downwind ozone in the same post-proposal modeling -- but Texas was not afforded that same opportunity and EPA has not explained why it is treating Texas differently. Like so many of EPA's other rules and actions -- extreme tightening of ozone limits, "global warming" control schemes, attempts to abolish Texas' very successful flexible permitting program, to name but a few -- the new rule seems intended not so much to improve the environment as to impose unnecessary, expensive federal controls on industry and to increase the costs of energy to citizens. And because increased energy costs also increase the price of nearly everything individuals purchase, policies designed to reduce energy supply are among the most regressive and unfair that government can devise. Not for the first time, EPA has gone beyond its mission by tailoring science to its political objectives. As with the pending new ozone standard, EPA has "proven" that reasonably protective limits on emissions simply do not exist. Under this administration, the only acceptable emission level of any pollutant is zero. This philosophy is at odds with a healthy environment, healthy economy, and sound science. Bryan W. Shaw is chairman of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.
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#1. To: CZ82 (#0)
BUWAHAHAHAHA 8D Yeah. EPA really handed bp their head. As in blow job....;}
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