November surprise: EPA planning major post-election anti-coal regulation

Professor Peabody · Nov 6, 2012

November surprise: EPA planning major post-election anti-coal regulation

November 4, 2012 | 11:44 am

President Obamas Environmental Protection Agency has devoted an unprecedented number of bureaucrats to finalizing new anti-coal regulations that are set to be released at the end of November, according to a source inside the EPA.

More than 50 EPA staff are now crashing to finish greenhouse gas emission standards that would essentially ban all construction of new coal-fired power plants. Never before have so many EPA resources been devoted to a single regulation. The independent and non-partisan Manhattan Institute estimates that the EPAs greenhouse gas coal regulation will cost the U.S. economy $700 billion.

The rush is a major sign of panic by environmentalists inside the Obama administration. If Obama wins, the EPA would have another four full years to implement their anti-fossil fuel agenda. But if Romney wins, regulators will have a very narrow window to enact a select few costly regulations that would then be very hard for a President Romney to undo.

Environmentalists at the EPA pulled this trick before in 2000 when the Clinton administration rushed out a finding that Mercury emissions from power plants were a growing public health threat pursuant to the Clean Air Act. That finding did not regulate power plants itself, but it did force the Bush administration to begin a lengthy regulatory process. The Obama EPA has estimated that this regulation alone will cost the U.S. economy $10.9 billion a year.

http://washingtonexaminer.com/novem...-coal-regulation/article/2512538#.UJl2-2dOdkR
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The day after Romney's inaugurated he should fire the Director of the EPA and each and every upper and mid level manager and replace them all with folks that have common sense. The have the new director halt all enforcement of regulation created since Jan 2009 and review them for necessity.

I love it when I heard Obama call for cutting through the red tape in the north east and get things done. Why the F is the red tape there in the first place? Today is all of our chance to remove this absolute incompetent from the White House, just do it.

waltky · Feb 8, 2013

Granny wantin' to know how ya s'posed to keep up with what the rules are if dey ain't tellin' anybody...

GAO: 35% of Major Federal Regulations Were Issued Without Public Notice
February 8, 2013 According to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), 35 percent of major federal regulations those with at least $100 billion in annual economic impact were issued without a public notice from 2003 to 2010.

The GAO also said that 44 percent of non-major regulations were issued without a public notice, which is referred to as a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM). During calendar years 2003 through 2010, agencies published 568 major rules and about 30,000 nonmajor rules, the GAO said in a December report to Congress. [Federal] agencies published about 35 percent of major rules and about 44 percent of nonmajor rules without an NPRM during those years.

The GAO found a large spike in this practice under President Barack Obama, with the percentage of major rules issued without public notice jumping from 26 percent in 2008 to 40 percent in 2009. The number of major rules issued this way also hit a high point in both 2009 and 2010. (Obamas first year in office as president began in January 2009.) In particular, from 2008 to 2009, the percentage of major rules without an NPRM increased from 26 percent to 40 percent, reported the GAO. Agencies issued the largest numbers of major rules without an NPRM in 2009 and 2010 (34 in each year), though the percentage was higher in 2009 than in 2010.

The Obama administration also drastically increased the use of so-called interim final rules. These rules are effective immediately and issued without public notice but often allow public comment once they are issued. Interim final rules differ from the normal federal rulemaking process in that they skip the normal notice-and-comment period in favor of simply issuing final regulations immediately, with the possibility that the rule can be changed later. From 2003 to 2010, the GAO found that about 47 percent of all rules without an NPRM were interim rules.

The GAO found a spike in such immediate rulemaking under the Obama administration, jumping from about 11 percent of federal rules in 2008 to 13 percent in 2009 to 22 percent in 2010. Some of the regulations the GAO found that had been issued without public notice have been some of the most controversial rules issued in the past several years, including the Obama administrations moratorium on offshore drilling, its Cash for Clunkers program, its rule that adult children up to age 26 could remain on their parents health insurance, and the rules for the TARP bank bailout program begun under former President George W. Bush and continued under President Obama.

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November surprise: EPA planning major post-election anti-coal regulation

Professor Peabody Well-Known Member Past Donor

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November surprise: EPA planning major post-election anti-coal regulation

Professor Peabody Well-Known Member Past Donor

waltky Well-Known Member

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