Nice town ya got there. Would be a pity if Democratic policies happened to it.
For more than 90 years, the coal-fired power plant in Glen Lyn, Va., has been churning out electricity and contributing to local prosperity. Of late, it has generated nearly a quarter of the revenue for the $1 million budget of the town.
Yet when the plant ultimately shuts down to comply with new federal air pollution regulations by the end of 2014, says Town Manager Howard Spencer, so too might the community of 200.
“If the town lost all of that revenue,” he says, “we would struggle to even continue to be incorporated.”
An Associated Press analysis has found that more than 32 mostly coal-fired power plants in a dozen states will be forced to close because of the new, more stringent regulations. Another 36 plants are at risk of closing.
That’s a lot of jobs the administration is regulating away, while another 20,000 are being aborted via the president’s XL pipeline shenanigans. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, President Obama’s anti-economic growth czar, is announcing the MACT rule’s implementation this afternoon. She wants you to know that she’s killing jobs and possibly a whole town for the children.
Lisa Jackson has a surprise in store today when she releases EPA’s first-ever rules for mercury and air toxics emissions from power plants.
The finalized rules include so-called safety valve provisions that would give some power plants an extra year – beyond the three or four usually allowed under the Clean Air Act – to comply with the utility MACT, a source close to the agency tells POLITICO.
DETAILS – Jackson will unveil the rule at 2 p.m. today at the Children’s National Medical Center, where she’ll be flanked by doctors and the hospital’s CEO.
Meh. Glen Lyn, Va. That’s just bitter clinger flyover country. This regime doesn’t care one whit for that.
Glen Lyn Va.
n example of what is in store if no one reins
in the EPA. I live in Eastern Kentucky in an area that
is supported by coal mining. Take it away and we are ghost
towns.
We need to vote someone in who has the cohones to strip the
power of this job killing agency.
lyn
As you know, Obama, Jackson, and their supporters see destroying areas like eastern KY as a feature, not a bug. Now you will all have to move into high-density urban areas to survive; the urban poor are more easily controlled than the rural poor (can’t grow/hunt food -> more dependent on gov’t -> more willing to comply, etc.).
So we’re losing 32 plants, possibly up to 68. And how many Megawatts of generating capacity are going bye-bye?
Exactly where do they think we’re going to make up that lost power generating capacity? Do they long for the rolling-blackouts famous in the Soviet Union or are they just so enamored with Kim Jong Il’s amazing successes in Socialism er, I mean Juche (SURE it’s totally different) in North Korea that they want us to be just like them?
Orion
Do you honestly think they care? I’ve been through brownouts, they never happen to the neighborhoods where the rich and powerful live.
Take out enough power plants and it will affect their neighborhoods.
Hell, any sort of fast moving projectile into the right transformer would do the trick. I’ve seen BLOCKS go out for hours because someone managed to run into the precise pole to cause a nasty chain reaction.
The coming brownouts, and skyrocketing electricity rates, are another planned feature. It will be used to justify continued subsidies for green energy, to save us from the power shortage they created. It might even allow them to start Jimmy Carter style rationing programs again. Of course anybody with the right political exemptions will have some kind of exemption, only us common, formerly free, people will pay the price. Its basically socialism, mixed with crony capitalism, which if you look back in history used to be called Fascism.
Don’t worry. They can always just create more unnecessary government jobs. That’ll fix the unemployment problem right up.
Buy a diesel generator.
It’s what they do in the third world to keep the lights on.
And make sure you have shotguns or black rifles to keep the barbarians from taking your generator.
See how easy it is for a dark age to overtake civilization?
Obama is just doing exactly as he promised he would (interview in San Francisco, 2008)and he was elected. Have to figure that’s what the msjority wants. Reuters said today that this is to ensure that the affected utilities move to wind or gas generation. And we’ve seen how thrilled the EPA is with natural gas exploration, so draw your own conclusion as to what the aim is and who (General ______?)will profit. And it is purely coincidental that the only utility in favor is that in (wait for it) Chicago!
No worries — China will be happy to burn that coal.
///grr
“…where she’ll be flanked by doctors and the hospital’s CEO.”
Note to Lisa:
Ditch the Dr’s and CEO’s, you’re going to need security, lots of it!
Does she realize that, by trying to quickly kill as many anti-Obama states as possible before the election, she’s guaranteeing that the EPA will be drastically defunded and neutered once the R’s take over?
We’ve made steady progress on cleaner air and water for the last several decades. It hasn’t been as swift as some would have liked to see, but its all been in the right direction, and I saw no sign that this progress was about to be stopped. Her obnoxious overreach is going to be the driver for a huge setback for these goals in the long run.
Especially if we all start lighting fires in used tire dumps in Chicago and D.C. . . .
“10. bobby b
Does she realize that, by trying to quickly kill as many anti-Obama states as possible before the election, she’s guaranteeing that the EPA will be drastically defunded and neutered once the R’s take over?”
The R’s could already defund the EPA, they control the House and as a result the pursestrings. Seen any moves to defund ANY of the useless, troublemaking agencies, EPA, ATF, DEA, DoEd, DoE, etc., ? No and you never will.
Enjoy your life while you can, America is being dragged down the drain to a third world totalitarian state and NO ONE is doing anything to stop it.
The EPA, the guys who want to take mercury out of the air and put it inside your home. Mercury vapor lights? For extra credit, who can name how much of the mercury in our air that we put there, and the per centage that china puts in our air?
Is it possible that in the case of this plant, despite the impact on the local economy shutting it down is the right thing to do? I ask because I don’t know what the emissions levels of this plant are, and the story doesn’t say.
Pollution in exchange for jobs is not always an acceptable tradeoff.
I’m not trying to defend the EPA, the agency frequently over-reaches like with carbon emissions, which are not a pollutant. But that does not mean that it is wrong in this case.
D. Palmer–In normal economic times, it might be defensible to shut down/update the plant if it is causing lots of pollution. But now? All the nice extras that social democrats want can only be funded by a thriving economy–something the administration seems determined to prevent.
Burke wrote, “All the nice extras that social democrats want can only be funded by a thriving economy–something the administration seems determined to prevent.”
exactly
Burke, I just can’t agree with a broad statement like that.
I am no greenie. I understand that with industry comes pollution. But the rules that may cause these plants to shut down didn’t sneak up on anybody. They have been in place for many years. Perhaps if plant owners had spent the same amount of effort figuring out how they could comply that they did trying to kill them the plants would already be cleaner.
Let me guess…those doctors she is appearing with are paid by her government?
California Air nazis have already warned us in TV ads that if we don’t conserve enough, they will call for energy reductions themselves. It’s coming, folks.
Yes, we are now a third world country. Even Canada has more economic freedom than us!
So I guess the EPA has to destroy the town in order to save it['s children]…
D. Palmer, this is not a policy that has been in place for years. It’s entirely new with it’s mercury limiting regs. That’s what the beef is…limit mercury in the air yet force massive amounts of mercury into homes via mandated CFL bulbs.
John, those are two different issues. I completely agree with you that the government should not be trying to shove CFL’s down our throats.
But the hypocrisy of shutting down coal fired plants while demanding millions of CFL’s enter the home and then landfills doesn’t mean that mercury emissions from power plants don’t need to fall.
The EPA was given a mandate to reduce mercury emissions in 1990. The EPA first tried to issue new rules in 2005 (that’s a 15 year lead in period). Those rules were overturned in 2008 (I believe for not being strict enough), leading to these rules, 3 years later. So this has been coming for 21 years, which is a long time in my book.
Based on an AP article I found it appears that the new rules will shut down between 32 and 68 plants, slightly more than 5% of the 1,300 coal burning power plants in the US.
Just as lower power consumption is not a good enough reason to force CFL’s on the public. The loss of a a few hundred jobs is not sufficient reason to NOT reduce emissions of one of the most harmful elements known to man.
D Palmer, these power plants have been on line for years and have been meeting EPA standards for years. The EPA has changed those standards – without providing the supporting science to justify those changes. This smells like a politicial ploy to close down coal (as Jackson promised). Closely aligned with this new anti-progress push, Jackson’s EPA is also going to mandate the amount of dust that farmers can raise while plowing and planting.
I have seen no evidence that the changes to the air standards are necessary – and in this economy – desireable.
Standards change. Physicians used to treat illness by bleeding the patient. Doctors used to advertise cigarettes. Evolving auto emission standards have produced cars that emit fewer airborne pollutants than they take in. The fact that the plants have been polluting for decades doesn’t mean that they should be allowed to do so for decades more.
At this point it will shut down as many as 68 of 1,300 coal fired power plants, that hardly amounts to closing down coal.
Mandates on dust from farming are, like CFL’s, a separate issue. They may be part of a larger pattern by Jackson to push the extreme environmentalist agenda, but that doesn’t mean that standards on mercury emissions should not be established.
1. Roll back EPA regs to 2006.
2. Stick with these unchanged for 20 years.
3. Then evaluate what needs to be updated.
4. Go to step 2.
My understanding is that there weren’t any mercury standards in 2006. If 95% of coal plants meet the standard now is it so unreasonable to tell the others to do so in 4 years?