“The actual justification for the Utility MACT, one of the most expensive and consequential regulations of all time, is to protect a supposed population of pregnant subsistence fisherwomen, who consume hundreds of pounds of self-caught fish from exclusively the most polluted inland bodies of fresh water.
I’ve documented this outrageous rationale here. [But] EPA has never actually identified a real-life member of this putative population of pregnant super-anglers with voracious appetites; rather, they are modeled to exist…. This regulation is nothing more than quid pro quo, business as usual, special-interest politics.”
On Sunday morning’s Platts Energy Week with Bill Loveless, FERC Commissioner Philip Moeller gave a bombshell interview regarding the clear and present danger to electric reliability posed by the EPA.
An excerpted transcript is posted below:
FERC Commissioner Philip Moeller: “We’re closing an enormous amount of coal generation, through a variety of rules, and a good number of those plants are set to retire next April.…
“We need to recognize the enormous health and environmental benefits in ending energy poverty, eliminating household air pollution, and increasing access to low-cost electricity. Everyone in the world deserves to live as well as those in developed nations. Let’s use more energy, more cleanly, every day.”
– Gregory Boyce, chairman and chief executive officer, Peabody Energy (February 26, 2014)
Bravo! … This is by far the best coal-industry campaign since the Greening Earth Society made a powerful case for the positive externalities of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions back in the 1990s. The new effort, two months old, was announced with this headline:
Advanced Energy for Life Campaign Launched to Build Awareness and Support to End “World’s Number One Human and Environmental Crisis” of Global Energy Poverty
“Calling global energy poverty the world’s number one human and environmental crisis,” the press release read: “Peabody Energy today launched a comprehensive global campaign aimed at building awareness and support to eliminate energy poverty, increase access to low-cost electricity and improve emissions through advanced clean coal technologies.”…
…“The Koch brothers and the others who operate the way they do have worked overtime to put fear in the hearts of Republicans that if they as much as breathe a favorable breath about solving the climate crisis they’re going to get a well-financed primary opponent. And so they’re all running scared.”
– Al Gore, quoted in Darren Samuelsohn, “Al Gore Is Not Giving Up” Politico Magazine, April 24, 2014.
“I think Al Gore’s done more to hurt this cause than he has to help it…. There are a lot of Democrats who don’t want to get within 10 miles of Al Gore on climate policy, because … he doesn’t mind turning the economy upside-down because of sort of a religious zeal he has.”
– Lindsey Graham (R-SC), quoted in Jean Chemnick, “Graham says Gore to Blame, not Obama, for Congress’ Antipathy toward Climate Bill,” E&E News, June 23, 2011.