Obama Hits Struggling Americans With Energy Rate Hikes

Draconian EPA regulations lead to blackouts, artificial scarcity after vow to “bankrupt” coal industry
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet
Aug. 22, 2011

Following Barack Obama’s vow to “bankrupt” the coal power industry, Americans are set to be hit with a wave of utility bill hikes as draconian EPA regulations drive up the cost of energy while General Electric, one of Obama’s biggest campaign donors, gets a waiver and is completely exempt.

New EPA rules dictate that utility companies will be forced to spend an initial outlay of $800 million dollars to conform with the regulations that mandate “harmful” emissions be reduced under the Clean Air Act.

Groups like the Edison Electric Institute warn that the new rules eventually “cost utilities up to $129 billion and force them to retire one-fifth of coal capacity,” prompting a wave of coal plant shutdowns.

The new rules will exacerbate the problem of rolling blackouts, warns Donna Nelson, head of the Texas Public Utility Commission.

“I have no doubt in my mind that this rule will result in reliability issues and rolling outages in Texas,” Nelson said.

The EPA claims the new rules will “prolong lives by reducing harmful smog and soot pollution,” and yet power plants supplied by General Electric, one of Barack Obama’s biggest campaign contributors, have received an EPA waiver and will not be subject to the regulations.

All this will of course lead to significantly higher utility bills for U.S. citizens, who are being assaulted with more expenses even as the threat of a double-dip recession lowers living standards and the devalued dollar buys less and less each day while food stamp usage hits record highs.

“Wisconsin Public Service Corp. of Green Bay said its residential customers can expect an increase of more than $4 a month next year, including about $2 linked to the new rules designed to limit air pollution from coal-fired power plants,” reports the Milwaukee-Wisconsin Journal Sentinel.

The Obama administration’s crusade against coal-fired power plants, launched on the back of discredited junk science about hyped global warming threats, has little to do with improving the environment and everything to do with lowering living standards by creating artificial scarcity.

Obama's strict enforcement of draconian EPA regulations has led to new clean-burning coal-fired plants being mothballed and other existing ones being shut down, which has in turn led to Texas and other states becoming energy-dependent, leading to shortages and blackouts exacerbated by freezing temperatures this past winter.

Despite White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer's brazen lie in claiming that the winter blackouts were solely a result of "mechanical failures," the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, the agency that oversees the state's power, confirmed that the increasing likelihood of blackouts was a result of a "maxed out grid".

This "maxed out grid" is a consequence of federally enforced EPA restrictions that have led to the delay, mothballing and closing down of coal-fired plants. In Texas, approval for the much-needed Las Brisas Energy Center has been delayed for 3 years as a result of EPA meddling in Texas' energy policy.

Numerous other coal power plants around the country that would have eased America’s artificially created energy crisis have also been shut down or abandoned.

The Obama administration’s mission to force Americans into fuel poverty was openly announced back in February when Energy Secretary Steven Chu unveiled the prospect of "massive" coal plant closures.

"We're going to see massive retirements within the next five, eight years," Chu said at a renewable-energy conference in Washington.

"Smaller, older units" that burn coal "won't be economic under new clean air standards," added Luke Popovich, a spokesman for the Washington-based National Mining Association.

Americans will be made to foot the bill as part of Obama's publicly stated agenda to bankrupt the coal industry in the move towards a "green economy," which has little to do with the environment and everything to do with hollowing out America's industrial base so that the country may be more easily swallowed up by the "post-industrial revolution" that remains the goal of the global elite.

Before Obama was elected, he promised to “bankrupt” the coal power industry, which is one of the very few promises that he has actually kept as President.

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Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a regular fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show.