House GOP’s Parting Gift: A Lump of Coal for Campaign Season
The House left for the campaign season today with a symbolic, blue-collar bipartisan vote that took aim at the Obama administration for environmental overreach accused of killing jobs in the coal industry.
The lower chamber passed the Stop the War on Coal Act today 233-175 despite a veto threat Wednesday night from the White House.
Rep. Bill Johnson’s (R-Ohio) Coal Miner Employment and Domestic Energy Infrastructure Protection Act, at the core of the package of five bills, would block the Interior Department from issuing or approving any proposed or final regulation under the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 that would adversely affect employment at coal mines.
“The Administration strongly opposes H.R. 3409, which packages together a number of harmful measures that would undermine landmark environmental laws and adversely affect public health, the economy, and the environment,” the Office of Management and Budget said in the veto threat. “The bill would roll back safeguards that protect public health, undercut fuel economy standards that will save Americans money at the pump while decreasing our dependence on oil, and roll back key provisions underpinning Clean Water Act protections.”
Nineteen Democrats crossed the aisle to vote for the bill, while 13 Republicans broke ranks to vote against it.
“I am in full support of sound legislation that advances an all-of-the-above energy strategy and leverages the complete set of resources right here in America in an environmentally-responsible way,” said Rep. Scott Rigell (R-Va.). “I voted against today’s bill because I share the concerns that some experts have raised that one of the embedded parts of the bill could prevent the progress I am committed to seeing in preserving and protecting the Chesapeake Bay.”
But all in all, it was a heavy Republican push to put jobs and energy front-and-center on the agenda as lawmakers head home to their districts for the drive toward Election Day.
In fact, the very act of the last vote itself had strong campaign overtones.
Missouri Rep. Todd Akin (R) wasn’t present for the vote, prompting the incumbent he’s challenging in the fall, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), to tweet: “I think it’s important to make votes, even during campaign season. Akin? Not so much. He has skipped 86%of his votes since July 1.”
“President Obama has waged a steady, aggressive, and job-destroying assault on the coal industry in America, which is bleeding Pennsylvania and other coal producing states of family-sustaining jobs and affordable and accessible energy,” said Rep. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.).
The congressman noted that this week Alpha Natural Resources announced it will eliminate 1,200 jobs and close eight mines in Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia, which its CEO said was a direct result of “a regulatory environment that’s aggressively aimed at constraining the use of coal.”
“In fact, the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity released an analysis this week highlighting the more than 200 coal-based electric generating units that are scheduled to be shut down due to, in part, regulations issued by the Environmental Protection Agency,” Kelly said. “These coal closures are tantamount to shutting down the entire electricity supply of Ohio, costing jobs, raising prices, and moving our nation away from achieving energy independent.”
Organizations supporting the package of five bills included the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the American Farm Bureau Federation.
“President Obama’s war on coal is real. The lost jobs are already happening and thousands more are at risk. Americans’ energy costs are already too high, and the war on coal will drive them higher,” Natural Resources Committee Chairman Doc Hastings (R-Wash.) said on the House floor yesterday.
Today, Johnson called the passage “an important step forward in stopping one of President Obama’s most economically destructive policies.”
“The Stop the War on Coal Act is common sense legislation that protects coal jobs from these destructive regulations that have put the heavy boot of an out of control federal regulatory bureaucracy on the neck of the coal industry,” he said.
In addition to Johnson’s legislation, the other bills included in the package were Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton’s (R-Mich.) Energy Tax Prevention Act of 2011, which amend the Clean Air Act to prohibit the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency from making rules on greenhouse gases to address climate change; Rep. John Sullivan’s (R-Okla.) Transparency in Regulatory Analysis of Impacts on the Nation Act of 2011, which would create a panel to do cost-benefit analyses on EPA regs; Rep. David McKinley’s (R-W.Va.) Coal Residuals Reuse and Management Act; and Rep. John Mica’s (R-Fla.) Clean Water Cooperative Federalism Act of 2011, which would amend the Federal Water Pollution Control Act to let states make their own water quality determinations.
Reps. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), Rick Berg (R-N.D.), Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.), and James Lankford (R-Okla.) offered an amendment, which passed 228 to 183, that said states rather than the EPA ought to be the primary regulatory authorities with regional haze programs.
“The EPA has been superseding states’ authority and setting regional haze controls that cost millions to implement but actually do very little to improve air visibility,” said Flake. “States like Arizona ought to have primary regulatory authority when it comes to controlling regional haze. We’ve got to keep the EPA in check on this.”
The Stop the War on Coal Act will come to a stop in the Senate, which is unlikely to take it up in the lame-duck session. But even inaction lends to the Republicans’ campaign-season message.
“House Republicans have passed several bills from our American Energy Initiative, and it’s past time for the Senate to join us in our efforts to expand domestic energy production and protect American jobs,” said National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Pete Sessions (R-Texas).
Carbon and Life
-It is hard to overstate the importance of carbon; its unique capacity for forming multiple bonds and chains at low energies makes life as we know it possible, and justifies an entire major branch of chemistry – organic chemistry – dedicated to its compounds. In fact, most of the compounds known to science are carbon compounds, often called organic compounds because it was in the context of biochemistry that they were first studied in depth.
-What makes carbon so special is that every carbon atom is eager to bond with as many as four other atoms. This makes it possible for long chains and rings to be formed out of them, together with other atoms – almost always hydrogen, often oxygen, sometimes nitrogen, sulfur or halides. The study of these is the basis of organic chemistry; the compounds carbon forms with metals are generally considered inorganic. Chains and rings are fundamental to the way carbon-based life forms – that is, all known life-forms – build themselves.
Thanks. Organic Chem really should be a required course for graduation from high school. However, if information was virtue……………..
I actually learned this in seventh grade earth science. It was before the department of non-education took control. Thank you for your comment!
Todd Akin is campaigning in Missouri. He has to work extra hard because the Republican National Committee has denied him any financial support, showing that the people should deny the RNC financial support.
I quit donating just before the last election. The foisting of McCain as our candidate, the lack of support for Palin, and the all around leftist leadership did it for me. I voted for McCain, as he was our only choice, wrote letters to the leadership regarding my lack of financial support and, of course, never got a response. Romney, if elected, may turn out to be a pleasant surprise and pull a Reagan on us. Only time will tell. God bless America.
FIFTY-SEVEN percent of U.S. power supply is generated by coal-fired plants.
ONE THIRD of the coal-fired plants will be shuttered by the Obama-EPA Directorate Collective, a wholly owned subsidiary of the environmental extremist movement.
What is there to replace those generation plants? Solar and Wind, yeah right!.
Dirty little secret of Solar and Wind power generation–they are both SO UNRELIABLE THAT STANDARD FUELED GENERATION PLANTS ARE KEPT POWERED UP TO PREVENT CRASHING THE ELECTRIC GRID WHEN THEY CAN’T DELIVER POWER. For those of you having received a public-school education this means that fossil-fueled plants are running as a permanent backup supply for Solar and Wind generation.
Obama is turning America into a SOCIALIST PARADISE–a third or fourth world country. We will be experiencing brownouts very soon, our power bills will likely QUADRUPLE. For those of you with a public school education that means if your power bill last month was $250.00 it will increase to $1,000.00 for the same consumption in the future.
Venezuela will have a more reliable power system than America.
Future rate increases are pre-soldcat auction- utility rates for 2015 are 6 to 30 times higher than 2012!
Well, when ones ‘anti-colonial dreams from ones father’ becomes a nightmare for the west, the idea of bringing the US to its knees-via deconstructing proven energy methods-makes sense.
Therefore, whatever has a proven track record must be stopped – by any means necessary – and the schemes of greens becomes the push from the top.
To understand the above more fully, please view this blockbuster video – “2016: Obama’s America” -http://adinakutnicki.com/2012/09/22/a-pre-electoral-gift-to-americans-embedded-link-to-the-blockbuster-2016obamas-america-adina-kutnicki/
These stats are a little out of date, but good enough for government work. Coal and uranium support some 2/3 of our generating capacity (I engineered two score fossil generators, a score of nukes, and spent decades assessing advanced technologies) Once they supplied 90% of our juice. “Clean” and “safe” regs, plus some brilliant materials engineers sliced the pie differently, combustion turbines (jet engines) could compete burning natural gas, the only carbon fuel which could get a license. CTs are race cars, superb peakers (will go from cold to full power generation within minutes) but are lousy at base load. The big coal and nukes run at full power for more than a year, without backing down. They take half a day to ramp up and accept load.
The current green energy technologies will require hundreds of tiny generators fluctuating from zero to full power as a cloud rolls by, or a wind gust hits. They are useless for full time juice, so our government geniuses will convert our massive generators to swing wildly in performance, trying to cover the instantaneous shortage of energy, something they were never engineered to do. The grid is akin to a calm lake (or ocean) high in the mountains. It may fluctuate slowly 2% in voltage over hours. The green politicians are converting this, on paper, into a system of many mill races. If the loads and supply deviate significantly for 1/100 second, big things will melt. Chunks of the grid will collapse as dispatchers and generators frantically fight to stabilize an inherently unstable system. Only a politician would do this; veteran engineers cringe in terror.
The issue for our leaders is simple: without coal combustion (and uranium) America can not sustain our economy, and advanced industrial way of life. The constraint is the cost of regulations. We have not built much in fifty years (except jet engines); the equipment has now rotted. Tell the hard truth now. Make policy. Now. American politicians can no longer kick the can down the road, letting costs skyrocket, and outages increase, for some unknown reason, “unintended consequences”. I call BULL. IMHO, we may have passed the point of recovery. Obama’s election will remove all uncertainty. America faces a life defining event.
“Nineteen Democrats crossed the aisle to vote for the bill, while 13 Republicans broke ranks to vote against it.”
This is how it is supposed to work. Not supposed to be voting the national Party line, but the actual interests of one’s constituents. Sure, you have to sometimes decide what is good for the nation as opposed to parochial or selfish interests, but mostly it is about representing those who sent you. Too often, Congressmen are just representing their Party.
This kind of vote split means there is probably some good legislation in there.
Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), to tweet: “I think it’s important to make votes, even during campaign season. Akin? Not so much. He has skipped 86%of his votes since July 1.”
It is more important to vote correctly, than to simply vote. I would that Claire McCaskill had NOT voted, than to have voted for the Affordable Care Act(Obamacare), the Dodd Frank Act, and any number of the other poisonous pill bills Obama and the Democrats have seditiously passed during the past 3 1/2 years.
Since McCaskill voted in favor of these atrocities, it would have been infinitely preferable she had not voted at all. Hence Todd Akin would have been the better Senator, even if he had never showed up to cast a single vote.
Have you ever had the experience of trying to fix something you have absolutely no idea how to fix, only to make the problem far worse? Of course you have. So has Claire McCaskill. She had no idea what monstrosities lurked within those thousand plus page bills she she so blithely voted for. And if she did know, curses upon her for voting for them. Either way the voters of Missouri would be well served to dump Claire McCaskill in favor of Todd Akin who might actually read he bills before he votes for them.
Sorry, but your comments are not relevant to the topic of this thread.
I have to wonder if the posters on this thread actually believe in free market capitalism. Last couple years, the coal industry has been getting its collective rear end royally kicked, by natural gas, in the marketplace. Gas is cheaper, cleaner, and now so abundant that there is a glut in the marketplace, driving prices down. The noise about “regulation” can’t mask the basic fact that coal can’t compete without welfare handouts of the type in HR 3409.
Mitt Romney says he wants a level playing field for energy development. That’s why he opposes subsidies for solar and wind energy. Not a good move for his chances in Colorado since this state is big on renewables, and the appeal crosses party lines. Given Romney’s position, one could ask, then, why is Paul Ryan a zealous supporter of HR 3409?
Work on your reading skills.
The article states that eight Appalachian coal mines will be closed and 1200 miners will lose their livelihoods due to regulations, the war on coal. The government has their fat thumb on the scales of commerce, a free market place does not exist. Chop that thumb off, and let all fuels compete. If Natural Gas can win, so be it. Those coal miners’ families should not go hungry because some bureaucrat claims the oceans will rise in three centuries.
On a level playing field no green energy can compete with carbon combustion, for base loaded supply (there will be niche markets, e.g. interruptibile power), but they are all far too expensive due to inherent technical limitations. The only way they can survive is massive subsidies, which means charging other Americans for some one’s light bill. This is an abuse of government power, a march toward dictatorship, a war on other people’s way of life, and the certain result that our macro economy will be weakened. Paul Ryan wants a smaller, less partisan government, both in Colorado and Appalachia. This will require running a plow through the EPA, and a return to a less regulated, market based energy market.
Poverty is the worst form of pollution, and is clearly the direct result of the government’s war on coal.
R.L.: you’re not doing your usual good research. Wind energy is competing fine here in Colorado due to downsloping winds off the mountains. Yes, there is a wind subsidy (that Romney wants to get rid of). But fossil fuels also are subsidized. Places in Colorado get 300+ days of sunshine per year, which makes solar feasible.
Another big problem with HR 3409 is that it ignores some obvious public health issues, without even touching the 3rd rail of climate change. See http://www.conservamerica.org .
I am not current, my research is 5-10 years old, but excepting a few technical advances, my judgments on green energy stem from forty years of engineering study. Do not believe me, or anyone. The proof is to cancel all subsidies, and let the markets work. America desperately needs an honest discussion about subsidies. Most carbon fuel subsidies are common to industry tax write offs; they are not unique to any fuel. Most green energy subsidies are funding technologies which have been studied for fifty years, the technologies are essentially mature. We know their cost structures; they can not compete. (Again, there will be niche markets, e.g. local down slope mountain wind streams, but I address our national grid.)
Specific hydrocarbon subsidies stem from epic naked theft by Lyndon Johnson, Sam Rayburn, John Connolly, and the Texas good ‘ol boys. They are long gone and good riddance.
There are three aspects of nuclear subsidies which deserve green eye shades. There is a legitimate debate as to what fraction of our expensive weapon’s R&D to account to civilian power. Example: Roughly half of the fuel in today’s US nukes come from watered down USSR H bombs. Would you rather buy them or let them explode over your house? The second debate is the cap on liability, the Price Anderson Act, which limited a utility’s accident liability in a fledgling industry. After Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, Bophal, Fukushima, Exxon Valdez, and the WP well blow out, we have a basis for risk assessment, and in a market based economy, that risk should be carried by some company small enough to fail. The third is a reverse subsidy. Every light bill since 1982 funded a vitally needed repository for used nuclear fuel. We paid DoE, but got nothing, for $30+ Bn. DoE was to accept and own all high level used fuel, starting Jan 1998. They have employees who worked a career, retired, and died, but did nothing useful for a life time. There are tens of thousands who deserve to be fired.
I do not, yet, believe in externality costs (public health – climate change) because they can not be quantified except by ideology. The current environment cost analyses are a joke; they can not bear critical review. The health cost of all coal bug-a-booes, mercury, cancer, ocean rising, increased dandruff, may be a penny per ton, or a billion dollars per ton. No one knows. The sole certainty is that without carbon combustion, our advanced technologically based society can not survive. This national life or death issue is worthy of debate
We need competent adults in Washington D.C. who are honest. The lying must stop; there is no bright green tomorrow. There is just suffering if we abandon carbon combustion. We will not survive a civil war on any fuel, except economic competition.
You won’t get much argument from me regarding the Dept. of Energy & nuclear power. I think nuke brings some good attributes to the table. But the waste issues should have been solved years ago.
Colorado has one other thing; a renewable energy standard passed by the legislature with bipartisan support. It applies to the big utilities, but not to rural co-ops, which may change in the next session. XCEL Energy has met and even exceeded target goals. As I noted, I think renewables make some sense here due to the natural attributes (high winds, ample sunshine). Whether such a standard makes sense in less windy states, or those with less sunshine, is open to debate.
Published on Sep 24, 2012 by southernavenger Are renewed debates within the Republican Party over foreign aid and foreign policy simply libertarian distractions or asides? Or the resurgence of traditional conservatism as even defined by Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAZd9gA22XU