Factories Need Energy

Few would disagree that without affordable energy, manufacturers can’t produce the equipment, that in turn, produces the jobs that helps keep many small towns in rural areas alive, and allows many small farmers to continue farming.

These undisputed facts make it even harder to understand why the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has selected this time, and this economy, in which to try and impose new regulations on utilities that use coal.

Given the benefit of doubt, the new EPA rules seek to clean up the air. Hard to be against that but you have to ask, at what cost?

An economic study conducted by National Economic Research Associates finds the new EPA rules will by themselves cost electric utilities $184 billion by 2030 and kill 1.4 million jobs. Coal is our nation’s No. 1 energy source for making electricity, and clean-coal technologies continue to make it burn cleaner than ever.

In the pipeline, according to a study by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the agency has 30 major regulations and more than 170 new major policy rules that will create massive new costs for utilities.

With this regulatory siege, the EPA is trying to get “cap-and-trade through the back door,” ALEC said, referring to a Democrat-backed but business-opposed approach to controlling pollution with economic incentives. “The EPA has pushed ahead in its regulatory onslaught without regard to economic realities or democratic accountability,” ALEC said.

In a recent editorial, Investors’ Business Daily simply asks why? We would only add, why now? ◆