Pirate's Cove

Alternate headline: Obama readying plan to artificially raise your electricity costs and the costs of everything else by executive fiat

(NY Times) President Obama is preparing regulations limiting carbon dioxide emissions from existing power plants, senior officials said Wednesday. The move would be the most consequential climate policy step he could take and one likely to provoke legal challenges from Republicans and some industries.

Citizens might object, too, as they see their cost of living spike. And perhaps some rolling brownouts, too boot.

Electric power plants are the largest single source of global warming pollution in the country, responsible for nearly 40 percent of greenhouse gas emissions. With sweeping climate legislation effectively dead in Congress, the decision on existing power plants — which a 2007 Supreme Court decision gave to the executive branch — has been among the most closely watched of Mr. Obama’s second term.

That’s funny, I thought the biggest source was fossil fueled travel? That’s what Warmists always say. PS: CO2 is not a pollutant, it’s a trace gas necessary for life on Earth. Oh, and agriculture and landfills release way more GHGs than power plants, in the form of methane. The oceans themselves release sixteen times more CO2 than Mankind. But, hey, someone is really enthused by The Cult Of Gore.

The administration has already begun steps to restrict climate-altering emissions from any newly built power plants, but imposing carbon standards on the existing utility fleet would be vastly more costly and contentious.

Ya think? But, hey, why would a 1%er like Obama care about you peons? I’m not even going to get into his unhinged climate pronouncements during his Berlin speech yesterday.

Republicans criticize Mr. Obama’s climate policy as government overreach that is holding back the economy. Some Democrats, including those hawkish about climate action, also worry that tough new standards on power plants could slow job growth and raise energy costs, particularly in places like the industrial Midwest that depend on cheap power from coal.

But administration officials signaled that Mr. Obama had decided the risks from climate change outweighed the potential economic and political costs from taking steps to address it.

In other words, Obama is giving the middle and lower classes the middle finger as we suffer through this terrible and stagnant economic recovery, and do not need our energy prices artificially increased to go with all the other cost of living increases imposed on us by Obama and the Democrats.