The Tyrannical EPA

          Congress is not very popular these days.  That’s not surprising, considering hardly anything gets done under the Capitol dome when our national legislature is divided into two partisan camps.  Whenever the Senate sends bills to the House, they are routinely blocked.  When the House sends bills to the Senate, it is even worse.  Not a single jobs bills, ObamaCare fix, or domestic energy development bill has been brought up for a vote in the Senate.  In fact, over 350 House bills are sitting on Harry Reid’s desk, even as President Obama accuses Republicans of being obstructionists.  

          With our dysfunctional Congress powerless to stop them, federal agencies meanwhile are routinely putting out regulations that have the force of law. These agencies, in fact, function as lawmakers, enforcement officers, and judges, compelling businesses and individuals to comply with their regulations, or else--damn the consequences.

          We all know about the excesses of the IRS, but there’s an agency that’s even more out of control, and that’s the Environmental Protection Agency.  Its war on coal, for instance, is a major job killer.  Tens of thousands of workers in the coal industry have already been thrown out of work, and the worst is yet to come.  Even though the United States has done the most of any country to control air and water pollution, the EPA is never satisfied.  As it ups the ante, coal-fired plants have to close and plans for new ones must be shelved.
          When we think of coal, we normally think of West Virginia, but North Carolina will not escape the wrath of the EPA.  According to a report by the National Association of Manufacturers, if the EPA puts through regulations to reduce ozone concentration from the current 75 parts to the proposed 60 parts per billion, 24% of the state’s coal-fired generating capacity would be shut down.  The NAM estimates that this would cost North Carolina 127,000 jobs and $150 billion in projected annual growth, with the manufacturing sector being the hardest hit.  Skyrocketing costs of electricity would reduce household buying power $1,820 annually as a result.
         This wouldn’t be so bad if the Administration pursued an aggressive policy of energy independence.  But it frowns upon nuclear energy, seeks to find fault with fracking, and discourages off-shore exploration and drilling on public lands, while pouring subsidies into solar and wind projects that produce relatively little energy but kill lots of birds.
          Let’s hope that a new, unified Congress in January can begin to put a stop to all this nonsense.