The Caspar Star-Tribune reports:
Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead and members of the state’s congressional delegation reacted quickly on Friday to new U.S. Environmental Protection Agency rules to limit carbon emissions from future coal-fired power plants, saying they would cripple the coal industry as well as clean-coal research.
Meanwhile, some environmental groups point to recent unsuccessful efforts by the federal government to lease new coal tracts in Wyoming’s Powder River Basin as proof the nation needs to re-examine its policies for selling public coal reserves.
The EPA on Friday announced the first national limits on carbon pollution from future power plants. The agency also is developing tougher standards on existing plants as part of the Obama administration’s push to address global warming.
Wyoming is the nation’s top coal-producing state and draws nearly $1 billion a year from its share of the proceeds from coal production on federal lands.
“This latest EPA proposal would be damaging to Wyoming, the nation’s top coal supplier,” Mead said Friday. “The standards for coal-fired power generation in the proposed rule are unachievable and will arrest research, development and commercialization of clean technologies.”
Obama is killing two birds with one stone. The coal industry and wreaking vengeance on a State that would never support him.
Speaking of Europe, Finland is critically dependent on shipping for its export. The Finnish green party representative of the EU parliament pushed through a directive imposing the use of low-sulphur oil to be used in ship engines, with Finland implementing it long before any other European country does it, if ever. This costs Finnish export hundreds of millions of dollars for converting existing engines and developing methods for it. Why? Yeah, a Danish computer simulation “shows” that Finnish ship smoke kills 50 000 people prematurely in Europe each year. No hassle with any true, impartial disease or death statistics here, no sir; a strong belief and a computer takes care of the testimonial. That’s how Europe is heading towards ruin; not because of Finnish ships doing it but because everything else in European industry and economy is now being destroyed using the same kind of ideology.
You’re right and Mead is no different. He is a politician and plays both sides, and citizens cannot trust anything he says. He claims to be supportive of the coal and oil industry, which is huge in Wyoming, while also supporting the development of wind power and green energy. He claims to be against Obamacare, expanding the federal Medicaid program and health information exchanges as bad for Wyoming, then he sets up a state health information exchange to enable Obamacare’s implementation that turns everyone’s personal data over to the federal database and is federally controlled. He claims to be for state’s rights, then mandated federal government-run schools in Wyoming with Common Core and when any professional in the state dares to raise objections, he works to destroy them professionally and personally, as he did Cindy Hill.
Nothing short of mass, in the street, protests will deter the government from its zero coal policy. And those won’t happen, even when we emulate Europe with the government-created “energy poverty.”
I think the big problem is that too many governors think their job is just a stepping stone to the white house. If they were actually interested in doing what is best for their state, they’d be working together to take power back from the federal government.
It would be far more valuable if Wyoming’s client states like Illinois joined the battle, because it is as much in their interest as in anybody’s. Illinois generates more than 1/3rd from coal, and that coal comes from Wyoming. Illinois itself has lots of coal, but it was banned years ago by the EPA for being of the wrong colour or something. It is in everybody’s interest to get rid of the parasite.